Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
A windstorm rolled into Sweet Home Thursday afternoon knocking down trees and power poles and knocking out power to much of the area.
While the destruction closed several roads temporarily, Sweet Home was spared the worst of the storm, though some local customers were still without power on Monday evening.
Gusts of wind reaching 48 mph in Corvallis left about 7,400 homes and businesses still powerless there and another 4,700 powerless in the Albany area as of Friday afternoon. Pacific Power had 64,000 customers still out of power on Friday afternoon.
By Monday morning, only about 1,000 customers still lacked power.
The storm knocked out power to about 93,000 customers total in Oregon. Portland General Electric reported about 115,000 out of power.
Pacific Power did not have a specific number available for those without power in the Sweet Home area. Most of Sweet Home east of 18th Avenue, along with isolated buildings west of Highway 20, lacked power from about 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Thursday. Cascadia and other outlying areas still had no power Friday afternoon; and Friday morning, School District 55 canceled school at Holley, Crawfordsville and Foster for lack of power. Residents of 50th Avenue had power back Sunday, but some residents on Crawfordsville Drive had not had power restored at sundown Sunday.
Pacific Power expected to have everyone back in service by Monday afternoon.
A handful of homes were damaged by falling trees, including an unoccupied home on the corner of Dogwood and 16th, two mobile homes and a camp trailer in the Foster manufactured home park.
A fallen tree closed 49th Avenue Thursday night until it was removed by Police Sgt. George Dominy, Chuck Carroll of CenturyTel and Daniel and Ben Brewer.
A fallen tree also blocked homes on 27th Avenue.
Matt and Jody Garber of Long Street reported their power went out before 6 p.m. They looked outside and saw two trunks of “our very tall” cedar tree across 27th Avenue, blocking it completely. It crossed power lines and the top of their neighbor’s, Chris and Oma Winter, home.
The power lines caught the tree and saved their neighbors’ home, they said. Another part of the tree threated to fall into their home, so they sent three of their children to their grandparents and took their baby and dog to the tree-free Safeway parking lot, where they spent half the night.
“We came home after 1 a.m. and found our house still in one piece and our power back on, thankfully,” they said. Power was out and access to homes on 27th was blocked until Saturday.
Fallen trees blocked Berlin Road, Marks Ridge Road and Rowell Hill Road on Friday, though Berlin Road had one lane open. Emergency crews also reported trees blocking Wiley Creek Road and Whiskey Butte Road Thursday night.
Sweet Home High School water polo coach Kathy Benzo’s home was destroyed by a fire. She lives on Linn Haven Loop in Lacomb.
The house caught fire when a genetor exploded. About one-third of the home was left standing, Benzo said, but it had smoke damage.
Her family lost most of its clothing, which was in the laundry room and consumed by the fire.
The family is staying in a hotel right now and has found a house to rent until the insurance company decides what to do with the home.
Junia Calhoon is accepting donations to help the Benzo family. Checks may be made out to the Sweet Home Swim Club but designated for Kathy Benzo. Both Calhoon and Benzo are coaches with the club.
“They lost everything, so it doesn’t have to be financial,” Calhoon said. Donations could include Christmas gifts or “whatever,” she said.
Power lines blocked Old Holley Road near the Jack Wright and Son auto body shop. They were hanging about four to five feet above the roadway. Downed power lines also blocked Fern Ridge Road around the 27000 block. A power line was reported hanging eight to 12 inches above the entrance to the Point Restaurant by a police officer. Two fallen power poles blocked Highway 20 Thursday night.
Around Linn County, Albany and Halsey had numerous road closures Friday due to high water and trees down. Scio and Lebanon had four and five closures respectively still in effect Friday afternoon.
The Willamette National Forest, including Sweet Home Ranger District, had many roads closed by fallen trees.
The first emergency call received by local emergency workers Thursday was a pole fire on Maple Lane, but firefighters found no fire. Returning to the Fire Hall, they helped cut out the first reported tree fallen in the area, just west of 44th Avenue on Airport Road. The small tree blocked the eastbound lane. Police, fire and Public Works crews responded to that call.
A little after 5 p.m., firefighters responded to another reported pole fire on Highway 20 at 22nd Avenue. Dominy said lines there had arced and then stopped. After that, power was out to most of the east side of town. At 18th and Main, only Chevron had power. West of 18th, isolated buildings, like American Family Video, had no power. Safeway and Thriftway had their lights on throughout the event.
At about 5:30 p.m., firefighters responded to the two poles reportedly blocking Highway 20, about a half mile east of Quartzville Road. They left the scene, and Oregon Department of Transportation blocked the highway at Quartzville Road. A line of cars waited on the east side of the blockage while eastbound vehicles turned around and headed back into Sweet Home. Traffic was able to pass between Cascadia and Sweet Home by Friday morning.
Power repeatedly went out west of 18th Avenue for two or three seconds at a time in cadence with blue flashes of light in the night sky as transformers blew.
The wind subsided around 10:45 p.m., Fire Chief Mike Beaver said.
Friday morning, paid crews and volunteers were busy removing debris from roads and homes. Terry Lee of Lee’s Gutter and Construction, along with Dale Irons, were busy covering a hole in a mobile home in Foster.
The American Red Cross was helping people in the park.
City Manager Craig Martin said he did a visual driving tour of the city Friday.
“I think we fared pretty well,” he said. “I know of two residences that had damage from trees.”
Branches and boughs covered streets throughout town, he said, and Public Works crews were busy removing them Friday morning. All Public Works employees scheduled that day were assigned to cleaning up the roadways.
During the storm, “crews were out basically keeping the major roads cleared,” Martin said. The only major blockage he knew of was the one on 49th Avenue.
The high school swim team managed to finish a meet while power flickered intermittently, said Martin, who is a swimming official. He said power would flicker out momentarily, but it took several minutes for the lights to come back on. Sisters High School, one of the teams at the meet, left early to try to get home, but reportedly had to stay the night in Salem. Highway 20 was closed by the time Sisters left Sweet Home, and Sisters officials had hoped to get home via Highway 22 through Salem, which was also closed before they could get through.
Sweet Home High School also canceled the night’s winter band concert, which was to be held in the auditorium. It will likely be rescheduled for January.
Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District reported 20 calls related to the wind, and it had two medical calls, Beaver said. One medical call involved a man hitting a curb. He was not transported to the hospital. A second medical call resulted from a man cutting a tree off the top of his house at about 11:17 p.m. in the Strawberry Heights area. No other injuries were reported that night.
“There were times we had five different apparatus going to five different calls,” Beaver said. As far as he knew, he said, none of them ended up being fires, just downed trees and power lines.
The calls came in spurts, he said. From 5:09 p.m. to 5:50 p.m., the department had six calls. From 8:05 p.m. to 8:10 p.m., it had four calls. From 8:22 p.m. to 8:43 p.m., it had five calls.
“The main thing that we did was respond to complaints, 911 calls and reported to dispatch what we were finding,” he said. Whiskey Butte Road seemed to be one of the hardest hit during the storm.