'Bomb cyclone' kills 1 and knocks out power to over half a million homes across the northwest U.S.
CTV
A major storm swept across the northwest U.S., battering the region with strong winds and rain, causing widespread power outages and downing trees that killed at least one person.
A major storm swept across the northwest U.S., battering the region with strong winds and rain, causing widespread power outages and downing trees that killed at least one person.
The U.S. Weather Prediction Center issued excessive rainfall risks through Friday and hurricane-force wind warnings were in effect as the strongest atmospheric river — a large plume of moisture — that California and the Pacific Northwest has seen this season overwhelmed the region. The storm system that hit starting Tuesday is considered a “bomb cyclone,” which occurs when a cyclone intensifies rapidly.
Falling trees struck homes and littered roads across northwest Washington. In Lynnwood, Washington, a woman died Tuesday night when a large tree fell on a homeless encampment, South County Fire said in a statement on X. In Seattle, a tree fell onto a vehicle, temporarily trapping a person inside, the Seattle Fire Department reported. The agency later said the individual was in stable condition.
A 70-year-old tree fell on Wendy Harrington’s home in Issaquah, Wash., and she told KOMO-TV that she thought a whole wall was coming down.
“It felt explosive, like there was a bomb going off,” Harrington said. “Everything was just very loud.”
Early Wednesday, over 600,000 houses in Washington State were reported to be without power on poweroutage.us. But the number of outage reports had fluctuated wildly Tuesday evening likely due in part to several weather and utility agencies struggling to report information on the storm because of internet outages and other technical problems. It wasn’t clear if that figure was accurate. More than 8,000 were without power in Oregon and more than 24,000 had no power in California as of Wednesday morning.
