Update: Monday's Council Meeting Cancelled, Power's Up in Most of Enumclaw Friday

Update: 1:10 p.m. Friday: We heard from city administrator Mike Thomas just now, covering a lot of what Mayor Liz Reynolds had announced in for the city. "Things are in pretty good shape," he said, "most of the power's been restored to Enumclaw."

Some southern portions of the city are still without power. He also confirmed that as temperatures rise and tree branches thaw, it is likely new debris will be falling on power lines causing repeat outages. "In fact, I'd be surprised if there weren't [more outages]," he said.

Also, due to the demand on city staff this week, Monday's City Council meeting has been canceled. However, as the weather forecast does not indicate anything extreme next week, city operations should be back up and running fully, he said.

No big stories from this weather event, he said, and "we're just in clean-up mode now."

Update: 12:55 p.m. Friday: Readers on our Facebook page report that Sorenson Avenue has lost power again about a half hour ago. Myrtine Street also appears to be out. The transfer station area as well as Charwila Lane also appear to still be out.

While we continue to try and reach city officials for a better update, the power situation is likely due to the continued thawing and breaking of tree branches that fall on power lines -- as city operations manager Jim Flisrand told us yesterday (see below). Please continue to be careful and stay away from iced over trees if you can!

Update: 12:50 p.m. Friday: We just checked The Courier-Herald and saw an announcement that the rescheduled baskeball games that would have taken place tomorrow against Bonney Lake have been rescheduled again -- a firm date has not yet been set.

Update: 12:30 p.m. Friday: Your local editor April Chan is back up and running -- having set up shop at St. Elizabeth Hospital for the time being.

As we're past noon, most of you are likely aware that al city facilities are closed to the public today. According to city administrator Mike Thomas, overnight, the power came back on to most of the city and the main streets have been plowed.

We took a spin along Cole Street just now and saw most stores were open as well. By phone, we understand Starbucks was understandably mobbed this morning, and Safeway had been open all day yesterday and today thanks to generators that they have.

Update 8:30 a.m., Friday: Cleanup is starting, with garbage workers out resuming service Friday, said Kathy Chambers from the City Shops. “The garbage guys are doing their best to get to what we can. We won’t put them down alleys if it’s dangerous with trees breaking and such,” Chambers told us at about 8:30 a.m. “They’re out there trying to clean stuff up.”

Chambers said it looks like power is back on in the city. She did see some streets still closed, including Battersby between Cole and Porter.

And PSE now shows 4,302 customers without power in our area, so that's an improvement. Over on our Facebook page, a reader says she lost power in the Meadows.

Update 7:19 a.m., Friday: Here's the latest from the Washington State Department of Transportation, as of 6:50 a.m.: State Route 18 is closed from Interstate 5 to state Route 167, and from state Route 164 to Interstate 90 due to multiple downed trees, freezing rain and deteriorating conditions. Weyerhaeuser Way will remain open to allow for local traffic. The ramp from northbound I-5 to eastbound SR 18 is also closed.

And state Route 410 is closed between SR 164 and the Federation Forest.

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Update 6:45 a.m., Friday: Looks like lots of folks are still without power this morning. According to Puget Sound Energy's outage map, there are still 5,771 Enumclaw-area customers without power. And that's just a small portion of the 260,000 homes and businesses in PSE's service area that are still without power as of 6 a.m. PSE says repairs could last throughout the weekend. We'll try to check in with the city soon, too. Let us know if you've got your power back on, or if you're still out and using batteries.

Update 2:30 p.m.: Andie Rymill at Enumclaw police told us the Enumclaw 911 center is experiencing a high level of calls and so man power has been doubled to handle the volume. Relief dispatchers have increased their shifts from 8 hours to 12 hours to cover the demand.

This afternoon, dispatch continues to take calls for downed lines, and the fire department has been dispatched to check the lines as well as respond to all other emergencies.

Since 7 a.m. today, the dispatcher has already taken 38 calls related to power lines and aid calls related to downed power.

Those who call 911 or 360-825-3505 will get the same level of attention, Rymill said. However, police request that you reserve 911 for genuine emergencies.

Update 2:10 p.m.: Andie Rymill at Enumclaw police told us the bulk of calls dispatch has received dealt with fallen branches that resulted in fallen power, phone and cable lines.

The fire department is handling most of those service calls and are running a full staff, she said. "They're just chasing one call after another," she said.

If there were a positive spin to put on today's events, Rymill offered one, "There hasn't been any crime calls at all today."

Still, "it's going to be a long day."

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As of about 11 a.m. Thursday, all power went out in Enumclaw that is serviced by the Enumclaw city utility, said operations manager Jim Flisrand when we spoke with him at 1:50 p.m. today.

The ice on the roads has made it hard for city garbage trucks to do their pickups so some residences were not serviced today, he said.

The city's water, gas, and sewer services are OK for the time. Water is fed into the city by gravity, he said, and the city has generators at stations that require pumping. Similarly, the sewer lift station pumps are gravity-run and there are generators for back-up if needed.

The big problem is electricity and more so, tree branches that are falling on power and cable lines. About 20 city utility workers are out in the city either blocking off access to certain streets that have downed cables while they await service from the appropriate agency, or clearing the streets of snow and ice.

The city has only one snow plow/sander, Flisrand said.

There are about 10 smaller locations in which wires have fallen in such a way that the entire street does not need to be closed off, but the following are three larger locations in which the street is totally barricaded (this is accurate as of 1:50 p.m. today):

• Semanski Street near Roosevelt Ave
• 2600 block of Roosevelt Ave
• 1900 block of Battersby Street

At present there is no ETA for when power might come back up. "What makes it uncertain is the ice," Flisrand said.

Editor's Note: With utilities down making it that much harder to get info to folks, please share with us what you observe and what people might want to be aware of. You can do so in the comments section.