Wild weather

Wild overnight weather left a quarter of Mason County without power at one point early Wednesday morning, closed roads due to downed power lines and felled trees, flooded roads and delayed schools.

At 6:45 a.m. Wednesday, almost 25% of PUD 3 customers lacked service, according to the utility’s website.

As of 11 a.m., that number had dropped to 4,419 customers (12.45%) throughout the county, PUD 3’s outage tracker showed.

Roads were slower to recover.

As of 9 a.m., Purdy Cutoff Road was closed due to multiple downed trees, Skokomish Valley Road was closed due to flooding and West Bourgault Road was closed due to flooding, according to Mason County Public Works.

The Skokomish was measured at 18.05 feet at 8:45 a.m., according to the National Weather Service’s Water Prediction Service. That measurement put the river in major flood stage — which begins at 18 feet.

The river’s record crest of 18.16 feet was set during a rain-on-snow event Dec. 3, 2007.

State Route 106 was closed in both directions at milepost 1.31, near Skokomish River Road, for water over the road, closed in both directions at milepost 13.15, near East Twanoh Tides Drive, for downed trees and closed in both directions at milepost 16.8, near East Trails Road, for downed power lines on Wednesday morning, according to the state Department of Transportation.

Downed power lines closed state Route 3 in both directions at milepost 0.58 near Southeast Vic King Road, with a detour in place Wednesday morning, according to WSDOT.

The intersection of Sand Hill Road and state Route 300 was flooding due to a combination of high tide and runoff Wednesday morning, according to the North Mason Regional Fire Authority.

Belfair Tahuya Road was closed just north of North Shore Road and North Shore Road was closed at the 1500 block and 7000 block Wednesday morning due to active mudslides, according to NMRFA.

All schools in Shelton School District were running two hours late Wednesday due to road and weather conditions, a message sent by the district stated.

PUD 3’s Public Information Officer Sheila Corson told the Journal the utility was “making progress” at 11 a.m. Wednesday, with 4,000 customers out, down from 14,000 at one point during the storm.

Corson thanked PUD 1 crews who jumped in to help after taking care of their own outages.

“Our neighbors are pitching in,” she said.

Corson saw troubling social media photos showing people placing caution tape on downed power lines and orange traffic cones very near the lines.

She cautioned people to stay at least 100 feet way from downed lines and said to always assume the lines are energized.