Windstorm leaves tens of thousands without power in Clark County

A potent windstorm knocked out power to more than 44,000 customers in Clark County homes Saturday night.

Winds from an intense low-pressure system began picking up in the metro area around 9 p.m., according to the National Weather Service office in Portland.

A 53 mph gust was recorded at 10:27 p.m. on the Interstate 5 Bridge.

A short time later, Clark Public Utilities reported that more than 4,700 customers had lost power. By 11:38 p.m., that number had reached 44,771, with most of the outage in Hazel Dell, Felida and Salmon Creek. Outages were also reported in the Vancouver Heights area.

Clark Public Utilities has reported on Twitter that the BPA Ross Substation was knocked out by the wind, along with a large piece of BPA transmission, affecting large swaths of the county.

“BPA will be making repairs to their system as we address outages and damage to our equipment,” the utility said.

”If you experience an outage, please report it by calling 992-8000 or using our online outage map. Crews are working diligently to restore power,” the utility tweeted. “Stay safe and never touch a downed line!

Outages can be tracked and reported at  https://www.clarkpublicutilities.com/outages-safety/