NORTH BEND, Wash. - Billy Rhynalds of North Bend died Sunday night when high winds toppled a tree near Carnation along Highway 203 – hitting him on the head as he put out cones to warn drivers about water over the roadway.
His wife of nearly 23 years says when she heard the knock at her front door she thought her husband had simply been hurt on the job, and the state patrolman was there to take her to the hospital.
"I said to them, 'Okay, where do we go?' And they said there is nowhere to go. You'd better sit down,'" she said.
Rhynalds, 65, was one of nine siblings, a doting grandfather of three and well-known fixture across the Snoqualmie Valley. He worked with the DOT for 12 years and so loved his job that even as he approached his 66th birthday, he refused to retire, even though his family thought it was time.
"He would talk about retiring and then when that date would come he would always put it off another six months. He just loved working," says his daughter, Aimee Sherrill.
Rhynalds wasn't even supposed to be working at the time of the accident, but when his boss told him they needed extra people to help handle to storms, he happily agreed.
His family says Rhynalds absolutely loved trees, making the random nature of his death that much harder to comprehend. Another strange irony, a 1999 front page picture from the Seattle Times of Rhynalds working storm duty. The family had it framed for him. The headline reads "Wind Turns Deadly."
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