Fade to black: storm hits Kitsap County

Though March is supposed to “come in like a lion,” January did a nice imitation late Thursday evening when gusty winds swirled through Kitsap County leaving 30,000 people without power.

Puget Power reported two high-voltage transmission lines had been disrupted in the county — including one on State Route 3 north of Bremerton. That incident left a large chunk of East Bremerton without power early Friday morning, Jan. 3.

The other high-voltage line damage was one north of Poulsbo that disrupted power to Port Gamble, Kingston, Keyport and a large portion of Bainbridge Island.

“Our first task is to get the trees off the lines,” said Dorothy Bracken, a spokesperson for Puget Power from their Bellevue office. “Then we can begin to repair the lines.”

Bracken said Puget Power had two types of work crews out Friday morning solving problems — tree crews and power crews.

“We hope to have power restored by sometime today (Friday),” she said. Bracken did say that outlying areas might not have power restored until later on Friday afternoon or into the evening.

Reached Friday morning, Sharon Aker, program specialist at the Kitsap County Emergency Management Department, said “things are pretty calm here.”

She said no major damage to Kitsap County’s infrastructure had been reported to Kitsap County offices or CENCOM.

Weather forecasts were for another storm system to pass through Puget Sound by Sunday, with predictions of 50 mph winds.

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