SEATTLE — A high wind warning for the Puget Sound area has been canceled after a morning windstorm knocked out power to thousands around Western Washington Monday.

Winds gusting to more than 70 mph blew trees and branches onto power lines and cut electricity to nearly 85,000 homes and businesses across Western Washington on Monday.

One of the earliest outages was before dawn around Monroe, where about 8,000 customers lost power after three substations went off line. That problem was resolved fairly quickly, but later storm-related problems cut power to about 1,400 customers in the Lake Stevens area.

The region's largest utility, Puget Sound Energy, had roughly 37,000 customers in the dark in nine counties, with Whatcom and Thurston hit the hardest.

More than 15,000 customers were without electricity in the Grays Harbor County Public Utility District, and at least 9,300 Cowlitz County PUD customers were in the dark, along with 8,000 in the Clallam County PUD.

Windy weather was blamed for outages that hit about 2,000 homes and businesses north of Vancouver, Wash.

Seattle City Light reported nearly 3,900 customers without power in the Burien area because of a failure in a feeder line and more than 100 within Seattle for other reasons.

Due to high winds, some Washington State Ferries were delayed one hour while the boats took storm routes.

Some of the higher wind gusts reported were 78 miles per hour on Tatoosh Island, 84 in Bellingham and 92 in Sekiu.

Eastern Washington and Idaho

Spokane-based Avista Utililties said about 1,140 customers were without power in Eastern Washington and northern Idaho from wind-related power outages.

There was no estimate as of late afternoon when crews would be able to restore power. Homes without power included about 345 near Colville and about 683 near Grangeville, Idaho, with scattered outages in Spokane, Davenport and Deer Park.

Oregon

High winds cut power to tens of thousands of Oregonians Monday including about 15,000 on the north coast and up to 35,000 at a time inland, mostly in Marion, Washington, Clackamas and western Multnomah counties.

Portland General Electric said outages in its area were as high as 35,000 at midday as service was restored to some areas but then failed elsewhere as a powerful Pacific frontal system moved through the area.

About 300 crewmen were working on restoring service.

By late afternoon about 16,000 PGE customers remained without electricity.

Widespread damage

Christmas tree dealer Roger Hildebrand was taking care to secure everything Monday morning as he puts up his display in Tacoma. Last year, he lost several trees in the big December wind storm.

"If one of these things go, it's like a domino effect because they're all connected together," said Hildebrand.

In Redmond, a huge tree took down power lines before landing on a pickup truck on Novelty Hill Road, narrowly missing the driver. Unfortunately, a King County Sheriff's deputy directing traffic at the scene was clipped by a passing car. He was not seriously hurt. The truck driver didn't stop, but Deputy Bryan Hill says he doesn't believe the driver was aware of what happened.

In Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island, a hole was punched out of a Les Schwab Tires sign, several feet above the ground. Mother Nature also seemed to ignore the fact it was Veterans Day, tearing apart an American flag.

In North Thurston County, several homes ended up being cut open by trees or had trees lying on top of them. Several downed trees and teetering utility poles made it difficult to get around on Highway 510 between Yelm and Lacey.

In Bellingham, a tree came down on Lakeway Drive, not only snagging a utility line, but also cutting off one of the main onramps to northbound Interstate 5.

Puget Sound Energy

This map shows how widespread the power outages were in Whatcom County as of 11 a.m. Monday. The affected areas are in red.

"It was mass chaos this morning before the police got here," said Jeff Goodman as he headed to work.

Winds really picked up along Alki in West Seattle around noon.  One man decided to brave the choppy waters that ensued and go windsurfing.

Snow in the passes

Snow has already fallen at Stevens and Snoqualmie Passes and more is expected Monday night. The Washington State Department of Transportation has called in reinforcements to prepare for the snow. Traction tires are advised at Stevens Pass. There are no restrictions at Snoqualmie Pass.

The urban science of wind

The wind storm provided the first test of a network of 23 sensors placed atop light poles in Downtown Seattle that use the sound of the wind to measure wind speed and direction.

The wind bounces off buildings and goes all over the place. Now, these microenvironments can be measured.

"We had some winds at 22-23 miles an hour. Parts of Downtown never got above five (miles an hour), because the wind, once it gets into the urban canyons, breaks up and goes every which way," said Bob Royer, director of the Urban Canyons Program.

In this case, the system is providing interesting weather information. But, that data could also prove critical to predicting what direction a plume of hazardous material or even radiation from a terror attack might travel.