Two people out for a walk on Friday returned to their cars to find trees on top of them. Both vehicles were unoccupied at the time, officials said, and no injuries were reported.
The incidents occurred during a wind and rain storm that saw gusts top 60 miles per hour in some parts of the county, officials said.
In Bayview about 3 p.m. Friday, a tree damaged a vehicle in the parking lot of the off-leash dog park. The incident occurred while owner and dog were in Marguerite Brons Memorial Park, and no injuries occurred. The vehicle was heavily damaged and had to be towed, said Island County Fire District 3 Assistant Chief Paul Busch.
About the same time, another tree fell on an unoccupied vehicle at the parking area of Saratoga Woods near Langley. The vehicle was slightly damaged, but no injuries were reported, Busch said.
Fire district personnel also responded to a half-dozen other calls about trees and limbs that had knocked down power lines on the South End, Busch said.
In an incident apparently unrelated to the weather, a pickup truck overturned on Sills Road near Staats Drive about 11 p.m. Friday, Busch said. The truck was on its top in the middle of the road when fire department crews arrived, and no driver could be found, Busch said.
Puget Sound energy reported several small outages Friday involving fewer than a dozen customers each near Greenbank, Freeland and Langley.
The largest outage, involving about 290 customers, occurred Friday afternoon when trees knocked down lines in the Goss Lake Road area, said Abigail Elliott, PSE spokeswoman.
All outages were quickly restored, Elliott said.
Sustained winds of 40 mph with gusts to 60 mph swept Whidbey Island Friday afternoon. Naval Air Station Whidbey Island reported gusts of 62 mph.
Brent Bower of the National Weather Service in Seattle said the rain and windstorm built off the coast due to an extreme low-pressure system, and swept an area from north of Vancouver, British Columbia to Oregon.
Hardest hit was the northwest corner of Washington state, including Whidbey Island, Bower said.
Winds to 70 mph were recorded Friday morning off the Washington coast, and gale warnings were in effect for much of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, he said.
