Two Dead, Thousands Without Power

A fierce windstorm battered the Pacific Northwest, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people,closing highways and killing two men. <br><br>Electrical service had been restored to most customers

Monday, January 17th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

A fierce windstorm battered the Pacific Northwest, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people,closing highways and killing two men.

Electrical service had been restored to most customers by Monday. Wind along the coast gusted to 115 mph Sunday at Cannon Beach,Ore., and 109 mph at Long Beach, Wash., with gusts at inland cities including 66 mph at Bellingham and 70 in the Seattle area, the National Weather Service said. Gusts hitting 81 mph at Netarts, Ore., pushed a house 12 feetoff of its foundation.

The Space Needle in Seattle was closed because of the unnerving effect as the 610-foot structure swayed in the wind, spokeswoman Mary Bacarella said.

"The wind at the top was 100 miles an hour," Bacarella said."It moves about an inch for every 10 miles an hour."

Waves hit 30 feet along the Oregon coast and a 140-foot oceangoing tug lost its tow line to a log barge near Depoe Bay,spilling half its load of about 15,000 logs into the water, CoastGuard Petty Officer Mike Johnson said. Larry Parton scrambled to safety as the wind flattened hisgreenhouse in Spokane.

"I heard some lightning and thunder, and I went over and lookedout the door and everything was just whirling white, and all of asudden it got really loud," said Parton, who was unhurt."Everything just started flying every place."

The wind, accompanied by rain and heavy, wet snow in the mountains, was spawned by a low-pressure system that tore up the coast from Oregon. More than 300,000 homes and businesses lost power in Washington at the height of the storms Sunday, and some 100,000 customers were blacked out in Oregon, mostly around Portland. Scattered outages also were reported in Idaho.

By Monday, 12,000 customers of Portland General Electric still had no lights, said spokesman Mark Fryburg. About 27,000 customers remained without service in Washington, utilities officials said. Hien Nguyen, 19, of Lacey was killed by a 120-foot fir tree that fell on his pickup truck, said police Lt. Matt Koehler.

"The tree just fell down in the windstorm, and it happened tofall down on this guy who was actually traveling at a slow rate ofspeed," Koehler said.

A 50-year-old Seattle architect, Gordon McWilliams, died in anavalanche in a closed area at the Crystal Mountain ski resort,about 65 miles southeast of Seattle near Mount Rainier. Ski resort workers had detonated explosives earlier in the day to trigger small slides and reduce the danger of a bigger avalanche, but the danger rose again as the roaring wind brought more snow, ski patrol director Paul Baugher said