Submitted by OPALCO

OPALCO crews responded to a report of a tree on lines on Shaw Island, Sunday, December 6, 2015 to find a massive tree had fallen and knocked out seven power poles. The downed lines blacked out power to roughly 3,000 members, all of Shaw Island and more than half of Orcas Island starting around 6:30 PM on Sunday. As of 5 PM on Monday, December 7, 2015, we cannot commit to a time for when power will be back on for Shaw and Orcas Island members, and the OPALCO crews are working as quickly as safety allows to return all affected members to service.

Crews secured the Indian Cove Road area of Shaw for safety, cleared the debris, and began setting replacement poles. Late tonight, Monday, crews will complete restringing the electrical lines and start to restore power. The outage, while limited to Shaw and Orcas Islands, created an enormous amount of damage to the OPALCO transmission lines. OPALCO crews continue to work on the Shaw site.

Portions of Eastsound were back on late Sunday when OPALCO rerouted service from Olga to the village to provide electrical service to Eastsound businesses and some of the Orcas Island school.

Most Orcas Island members got their power back on very late Monday night. As of 6 AM this morning, December 8, 2015 OPALCO crews turned on power for the last members along Indian Cove Road on Shaw Island, to call the first December storm damage a done deal.

Updates are posted on the OPALCO Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/orcaspower), and outages and update notifications to Twitter subscribers @orcaspower.