Wind Gusts Likely Cause of Wenatchee Power Outage

Wind is the suspected culprit in an outage Thursday afternoon in Wenatchee that knocked out power to about 1,500 people.

Chelan PUD Spokesperson Christy Shearer said the outage affected neighborhoods ranging from the area around Central Washington Hospital to 9th Street. Crews were not able to find the cause, but they suspect the outage is connected to substantial wind gusts.

"Wind can do all sorts of things. Wind can blow a branch into a line and cause that line to protect itself by shutting down and causing a power outage." explained Shearer, "There's really all sorts of ways."

Power was knocked out around 4:00 pm and was fully restored about 3 1/2 hours later.

Contact Chelan PUD's 24-hour outage hotline at (877) 783-8123 if you ever see something in a power line. If you ever see a sagging or downed power line, please stay away from the line and call 911. Downed power lines may still be energized, which could be fatal.

Also Thursday, Douglas County PUD reported about 68 customers southwest of Bridgeport lost power in the morning due to a tree in the line.