In the wake of Tuesday's bomb cyclone, Governor Jay Inslee has opted not to visit the afflicted regions of western Washington. A spokesperson for the Governor explained the decision to FOX 13 Seattle, stating, "Right now we don’t want to get in the way of the recovery work being done, so no plans yet." Meanwhile, communities are struggling to recover from the storm's widespread damage.
As residents begin to see an end to the outages, Snohomish Public Utility District (PUD) reports that 99% of their customers have had their power restored. The process has been arduous, with a single pole repair taking over eight hours, and longer in wooded areas. Snohomish PUD replaced over 120 electrical poles, according to The Herald. Repair crews from Puget Sound Energy and Seattle City Light have been hard at work with the former having 5,500 customers and the latter maintaining 11 without power as of Monday afternoon.
This week's recovery efforts follow what have been described as some of the worst damages crews have encountered in decades, with last year's November storm leaving 200,000 without power. In an effort to fully restore services, crews have been diligently dispatched to all remaining repair jobs.
Amid the clean-up and power restoration activities, Snohomish PUD's commitment to their customers remains steadfast. A PUD spokesperson assured KOMO News, "We are confident that we will have all customers back in power by the end of the day Tuesday, though many will be back on today or tomorrow morning. We have 21 crews out this (Monday) morning with more coming off rest this morning."
