Windstorm rakes High Desert; downed trees, power outages

Winds gusting close to hurricane strength (and well above at Mt. Bachelor) raked a large swath of Central Oregon early Friday, knocking down trees large and small and causing power outages affecting thousands of residents around the region.

Wind gusts reached a peak — for now — of 55 mph around 3:30 a.m. at Bend Airport but gusted close to that for hours before sunrise and continued through the morning, gusting to 53 mph again around 10:30 a.m.. Madras Airport earlier reported a 51-mph gust while the airports at Redmond and Prineville recorded strong but somewhat lesser gusts above 30 mph.

The National Weather Service in Pendleton issued a high wind warning in effect until 11 p.m. Friday and said the strong southerly winds won’t diminish until late evening.

“The strongest or peak winds are expected during the afternoon,” the forecasters said, predicting winds 35-45 mph with gusts to 65 mph .

“Property damage from downed trees and power lines is possible,” the warning states. “Strong cross winds will make driving hazardous at times, especially for high-profile vehicles.”

Highway 20 was partially blocked for a time by a downed tree between Bend and Sisters, as was Highway 242 six miles west of Sisters; track the latest condition reports on ODOT’s TripCheck on our Website.

About 100 people lost power in northwest Bend when a large tree fell in the area of NW Georgia Avenue and Sisemore Street. NewsChannel 21’s Katie Higgins reported live from the scene.

A resident in the 900 block of SE Douglas Street said a tree came down on his house, apparently barely missing his travel trailer and the edge of his garage. A resident near the Healy Heights Apartments on Bear Creek Road said a large tree had fallen, pulling up the grass around it.

A large tree in front of Mountain View High School in northeast Bend was reported down shortly before 7 a.m. and crews were working to clean it up.

Pacific Power said 1,000 customers in southeast Bend lost power for a period overnight in the first of two outages from the Cleveland Avenue substation; the second affected about 200, but all of those were back before daylight.

“We’ve got wire down all over town, not any large one,” spokesman Paul Vogel said around 7 a.m. Most widespread outages were farther south, in the Klamath Falls-Tulelake area.

With the coast getting a half-foot of rain, Vogel said their concern is that the winds will bring down many trees on saturated ground.

“People need to be particularly careful about wire — consider everything live,” Vogel said.

Pacific Power’s large-scale outage Website at https://www.pacificpower.net/ed/po/ooi.html reports outages of over 500 customers and at noon Friday had listings from Klamath Falls and Chiloquin to the coast and northeast Oregon.

As of 3:30 a.m., Central Electric Cooperative reported about 500 members without power in the Tumalo area due to the high winds blowing trees or branches into power lines, shorting out circuits or breaking lines.

The number dropped below 300 by mid-morning as repair crews were out restoring service, but the widely scattered nature had them on the run. Track updates at http://www.cec.coop/outage/

Midstate Electric Co-Op had about 350 members without power, mostly in the Silver Lake and Christmas Valley areas, but the number was down to about 75 by midday Friday. Their outage map is at https://ebill.midstateelectric.coop/oms/outageMap

NewsChannel 21 Chief Meteorologist ‘s Bob Shaw said the summit of Mt. Bachelor had 130 wind gusts — “that’s a Category 3 hurricane-force wind” — and 80 mph at mid-mountain.

With the wind and rain continuing, “only the temperatures will be mild,” he said.

On NewsChannel 21’s Facebook page, residents shared their stories of a windy, sleepless night

Lacey Samples said “my house is shaking! Scary.”

A tree was reported down in the cul de sac of SE Sixth Street south of Roosevelt Avenue.

Police scanner listeners heard numerous reports of downed trees, branches, power lines — even a broken railroad crossing arm, along with numerous business burglar alarms being set off by the winds.

One NewsChannel 21 viewer reminded people to bring in those garbage cans, many flying around the neighborhoods in the stiff, blustery winds.

We’ll have updates on-air and online throughout the day and a full report on NewsChannel 21 at 5, 6, 10 and 11.