Cleanup begins as storm topples trees and lines on the day after Christmas

The cleanup is underway after winds whipped through the Pacific Northwest Thursday morning.

"We heard about 3:30 last night, a big bang," said Sereta Rush who said the tree barely missed her car. "My car was probably about maybe a foot from the tree falling. Thankfully, no damage to my vehicle. We did have to do some cutting of branches in order to get my car out of the area, because I couldn’t back up freely."

Coastal communities were also hammered by high winds.

"There were scattered power outages across the county, mostly along the Long Beach Peninsula," said Scott McDougall with Pacific County Emergency Management.

McDougall urged residents to not wait until a warning is issued before taking action.

"Understand that we live in an area where the wind blows a lot of the Winter," he added.

Winds gusted as high as 41 mph at Portland International Airport. The National Weather Service had issued a Wind Advisory late Christmas night for gusty winds in the Willamette Valley.

"So we do have high wind thresholds and criteria. So sometimes they’re bordering on those thresholds and it may be oh we’re seeing one gust or two gusts. So we have to kind of reevaluate as we’re going on and in this case we started to see more widespread wind speeds and that’s when we issued that advisory," said NWS Meteorologist Rebecca Muessle, when asked why the agency issued the warning long after some meteorologists reported wind gusts over 40 mph.

The NWS warned another round of chaotic weather could hit the region this weekend.

"We’re in a La Nina year, so traditionally that brings down wetter and cooler air during the winter, so these low pressure systems just kind of stream in non-stop," Muessle added.

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News post in at: December 27, 2024, 3:00 am.

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