Lewis County Sirens.com

Updated at 1:09 p.m.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Authorities are urging caution as wet roads from melting snow have led to icy conditions around Lewis County.

Responders were called to two injury collisions late last night and another two big rig wrecks since.

“The roads are very icy,” Lewis County Fire District 6 Chief Tim Kinder said this morning. “Drive very careful today, especially on hill tops and back roads.”

His crew went out about 5:45 a.m. to the 600 block of Logan Hill Road in Chehalis where a fully loaded log truck slid into a ditch, Kinder said. The driver was uninjured.

Temperatures fell to near freezing across much of the region and drivers should expect pockets of icy conditions including black ice, the National Weather Service reported this morning.

It should warm up to above freezing by around 10 o’clock this morning, the forecasters say.

Washington State Patrol Sgt. Jason Ashley said this morning county roads were slick but state routes were bare an wet. It was different last night however.

Troopers were called about 11:40 p.m. yesterday to U.S. Highway 12 at Interstate 5 where a semi truck with two trailers slid into a ditch. The driver, a 42-year-old Bellingham woman, was reportedly uninjured.

At about 11 p.m., a 23-year-old Toledo woman was hurt when the vehicle in which she was a passenger ran into a guard along state Route 505 near Henriott Road in Toledo, according to the Washington State Patrol.

The driver of the Datsun pickup, Michael A. Frank, 42, of Toledo was said to be uninjured when the truck lost control on the ice and came to rest down an embankment, according to the state patrol.

Savannah J. Williams, 23, was transported to St. John Medical Center in Longview with a broken “tibia” and “fibula” the investigating trooper reported. The truck was totaled.

Two individuals were taken to Morton General Hospital after another single-vehicle collision on U.S. Highway 12 near Morton just before 11:30 p.m.

The car was eastbound when it struck a guard rail, according to the state patrol.

A 3-year-old boy in the car was unhurt but the driver, a 41-year-old Puyallup man had an injured wrist and a 34-year-old passenger from Graham had a possible injury to her thigh, the state patrol reported.

Driving too fast on icy roads was blamed for all three wrecks.

Winlock High School class ring from 1963, after 50 years on the bank of stream.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Chehalis attorney Dana Williams hasn’t lived in Winlock since 1963, the year he graduated from high school and joined the military.

But he left something behind in the south Lewis County town a half a century ago he never thought he’d see again.

The year was 1962. He’d already bought and was wearing his high school class ring, but it vanished during a Saturday night dance for teenagers at the community building.

Williams was surprised when he got a call last week from local historian and museum operator Roy Richards.

“Roy said, ‘did you lose your class ring?’ ” Williams recounted at the courthouse on Friday. “I said, as a matter of fact, I did.”

The ring had disappeared near Olequa Creek and that’s exactly where it had turned up a few days earlier.

Forty-five year-old Janice Rouska was visiting a friend, who lives in a house next to the community building when she went out back and walked down some rail-road-tie steps to the creek.

She was just taking in the scenery since the water was running high and the snow had fallen, Rouska said.

“I cleared some leaves so I could see the steps and there was a toe ring,” Rouska said, describing a small band the color of a penny.

“Then I moved some more leaves, and there was the class ring,” she said.

Her friend wanted to keep it, she said, but she said no, it belongs to someone.

Rouska visited a local business where an acquaintance examined it, and they could see the year 1963 embedded in the design, she said. She took a trip to the library to see if they had any old high school year books and was directed to Richards.

He runs the Renegade Rooster, a small museum at his Rhoades Road home. It’s all things Winlock.

Among his collection is a roster with the names of every student who graduated from Winlock High School since 1911.

The ring had the initials D.W., Richards said. Only three names like that turned up: Doug Wilson, Diane Werden and Dana Williams, he said.

Richards called Wilson and learned his class ring was sitting in his drawer.

Richards and Rouska learned that Werden had lost her class ring, but it had a white background, not blue like the one found about three feet from the creek.

And so Richards phoned Williams.

All are stunned the tiny piece of jewelry survived five decades apparently in almost the exact spot.

“It’s amazing,” Rouska said. “Considering how much water and dirt had to have been over it all those 50 years.”

The creek itself hasn’t changed much, except for the usual seasonal transformations, according to Richards. In the winter it’s very deep and fast moving and in the summer, one can walk across it, he said.

Williams picked up the ring on Thursday at the Winlock home where Rouska lives.

She’d run it under the faucet and taken a toothbrush to it.

“It’s in beautiful condition, although the silver is little tarnished,” Williams said before he took it out of a drawer at his Chehalis office and placed it on his pinky finger.

It cost about three month’s of the his teenage wages, he said.

The lawyer couldn’t say enough about the efforts Rouska made to track him down, but he was vague about the circumstances under which he became separated from his class ring.

“Let’s just say I was tossing something during a winter eve in 1962, and the ring slipped off behind the old community building,” he said.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Just as many folks are recovering from deep snow and its aftermath, a windstorm is coming tonight, according to the National Weather Service.

The foul weather could snap tree branches and cause further power outages, according to a wind advisory issued this afternoon.

The weather service says southerly winds of 20 to 30 mph with gusts up to 45 mph will develop after midnight and continue tomorrow morning.

The advisory is in effect for most of Western Washington, including the Southwest Interior.

Locally, authorities are expecting gusts as high as 50 mph.

Lewis County Emergency Management spokesperson Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown says the winds could cause more trees, utility poles and power lines to fall, with landslide possibilities.

In the Boistfort Valley, the fire chief has informed the community to expect to lose electricity, but was hopeful the increasing temperatures would melt some ice minimizing the risk of ice-heavy trees toppling.

And it will be wet, Lewis County Fire District 13 Chief Gregg Peterson notes in his message.

“The rain may be as much as two inches as this initial front passes,” Peterson writes.

A flood watch remains in place through tomorrow afternoon. An avalanche warning continues for the Cascade and Olympic Mountains.

The Boistfort community is prepared to open their grange if they end up with multiple people in distress, according to Peterson.

The Red Cross has opened several shelters, and the closest locally are at the Moose Lodge in Yelm and the McLane Black Lake Fire Station on Delphi Road in Olympia.

The Red Cross reminds the public of the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning during power outages:
• Never heat or cook inside on a charcoal or gas grill.
• Never use a generator or portable propane heater indoors, in garages or in car ports.

•••

Check the forecast and warnings for your area, here and here

Both the above links – “Weather forecasts” and “River levels” are always available on the right hand sidebar of Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – An estimated 2,000 Lewis County PUD customers remain without power this morning, some who have been without for more than 24 hours.

Exactly when they all will be restored is unknown, according to Alex Lane, assistant line superintendent.

Road closures from continuing falling trees and limbs hampered efforts yesterday.

“It just kept getting worse, it cascaded on us,” Lane said.

State Route 6 was shut down for a period yesterday preventing crews from making repairs in the Doty and Pe Ell area, but workers were being sent out there this morning, he said.

A crew returned to the Independence and Lincoln Creek area west of Centralia about 4 o’clock this morning, after pulling out yesterday due to the dangers of falling trees.

Those places and Winlock are the largest customer areas without power, Lane said.

“And we’ve still got a lot of little spots we’re trying to get to, but it’s a long list,” he said.

PUD crews have been working around the clock since the event began, with crews each getting four hours for sleep at a time, he said.

“They’ve all got a little rest, but they’re tired,” he said.

PUD has brought one east end crew to the west end and have made a call to Cowlitz County PUD to “see if they can spare some bodies,” Lane said.

Lane said they got a request yesterday for help from Centralia City Light but had nobody to spare.

This is as bad for this type of event as he’s seen in 30 years on the job, Lane said.

Customers can hear periodic updates when they report outages to PUD’s main phone number at 748-9261

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Downed trees and power lines had chainsaws working overtime and blocked roads meant in at least one case EMTs had to hike into an aid call and walk a patient out in the dark.

In Rochester, the fire department responded to almost 100 calls in the past 24 hours, despite losing power and phone service at all their stations.

West Thurston Regional Fire Authority was still operating on generator-power this morning at their main station on Sargent Road, according to Chief Robert Scott.

They normally get their calls over the Internet, Scott said, so they’ve been getting information over cell phones.

His Rochester area crews responded to multiple vehicle accidents during the last shift, mostly minor or non-injury, he said.

They extinguished a fire yesterday afternoon in a mobile home park which displaced about five residents, Scott said.

It happened about 4 p.m. at the 10,500 block of 184th. A double-wide mobile home was well-involved in flames when they arrived, but nobody was hurt, he said.

Heavy snow and ice building up on tree branches and power lines from Wednesday’s snow storm have been blamed for widespread power outages in greater Lewis County.

Centralia-area firefighters were called some 40 times yesterday and last night about power lines arcing, related to snow, ice and tree limbs.

About 4 o’clock this morning, an aid crew answered a call up Padrick Road in Centralia and it wasn’t long before they realized they couldn’t drive all the way there, Riverside Fire Authority Capt. Ken Colombo said.

They hiked about a quarter mile and ended up walking the patient out, Colombo said.

Downed power lines across all lanes of Interstate 5 in north Centralia blocked traffic for about an hour this morning.

The Olympian reports about 40,000 customers without electricity in Thurston County may have to wait days for it to be restored. Read more about that, here

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A woman narrowly escaped injury when a roof collapsed into her mobile in Winlock yesterday morning.

Lewis County Fire District 15 called to the 1200 block of King Road were told the resident had been sitting in a recliner and just gotten up.

About two minutes later “creak, pop, bang” and where she had been sitting was where most of the debris fell, Assistant Fire Chief Kevin Anderson said.

It was a single-wide mobile home with a pole barn-type roof above it, he said.

The weight of the snow was just too much, according to Anderson.

Fortunately the couple had a house they are in the process of remodeling where they could move to, he said.

Crews helped salvage what they could and moved some furniture and food into the other home, he said.

Anderson described the mobile home as beyond repair.

A Tenino family found themselves in a similar situation this morning when a tree sliced through their mobile home.

Crews were called just before 10 a.m. to the home, on Old Highway 99 just inside the city limits, according to Thurston County Fire District 12 Battalion Chief Jim Fowler.

At first, all he could see was the fallen tree and not the structure, Fowler said. He said the trunk was about a foot and a half in diameter and thought it might be a walnut tree.

Nobody was hurt, he said.

If not for the heaviness of the snow, it may not have broken through, he said.

Updated 11:35 a.m.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – Lewis County PUD restored power by 4 o’clock this morning to all their customers who lost electricity yesterday, but are back at it as the heavy snow is causing branches and trees to fall on power lines.

Alex Lane, assistant line superintendent, said the calls started coming in again around 6 a.m. today. He estimated this morning about 7,500 customers are without power.

A current outage in the Pe Ell, Doty and Boistfort area he believed was caused by a tree falling across a line about 6 a.m., he said.

The Boistfort area was among the last get power back after yesterday’s calls, he said.

A smaller area affected this morning is in Fords Prairie and Lincoln Creek.

Both PUD and Lewis County Public Works late this morning pulled out of areas west and north of Centralia due to falling trees and seriously icy roads, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.

The public is being asked to avoid the areas of Lincoln Creek Road, Michigan Hill Road, Teague Road, Kohse Road, Hyppa Road, Independence Road and Garrard Creek Road because of the associated dangers.

Transmission problems from BPA have affected power to Elbe, Mineral and Ashford this morning, according to Lane.

Crews had a lot of problems yesterday in the High Valley area of Packwood and also Lincoln Creek, according to Lane.

“It’s really snow, rain, built up on the branches and falling on lines,” he said.

About 20 personnel are working today in west Lewis County and 15 or 16 out in the east end, he said. That’s everyone available, he said.

Lane estimated some 10,000 PUD customers have been affected between yesterday and today.

The Olympian reports similar issues with trees in Thurston County, Read about it here

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POWER LINE SAFETY TIPS

The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office warns of the hazards presented by downed power lines and offers the following safety advice.

• Consider all wires energized and dangerous. Even lines which are de-energized may become re-energized at any time.

• Stay at least 10 feet away from the wire, because, electricity can travel through the ground.

• Electricity can also travel through tree limbs, so don’t try to remove a limb or other object that is touching or even near a downed wire.

• Don’t ever use any object to move a downed wire.

• If a broken power line falls on your vehicle, stay inside until help comes and warn other not to touch your vehicle. If you must leave the vehicle, jump as far away as possible with both feet landing on the ground at the same time.

• If someone makes contact with a downed power line, don’t try to rescue them because you risk becoming a victim yourself.