High winds today have toppled trees, sending them onto power lines, into roadways and onto vehicles — one even came crashing down on a fire truck responding to a medical emergency.
A crew of Vancouver firefighters was traveling code 3 — with lights and sirens — east on Mill Plain Boulevard near East Reserve Street when it happened.
Vancouver Fire Department Capt. Jonathan Lawrence was in the passenger seat of the rig when he heard the tillerman, who sits in the back and steers the back end of the truck, yell “tree, tree, tree!”
“By that time, the tree had fallen,” Lawrence said. “The center of the trunk exploded around us.”
The large fir tree, which measured about 4 feet in diameter at its base, fell on top of the rig while it was traveling about 35 mph. The truck’s inertia propelled it through the branches and trunk, which pushed in both windshields and broke out windows on the passenger side before the truck ran over the top of the fallen tree.
No one was injured, aside from a couple of crew members who were hit with branches and cut by broken glass.
“It’s truly a miracle nobody was seriously hurt,” Battalion Chief Lee Hazelton said.
The firefighters remained on duty and are manning the department’s reserve ladder truck.
The damage to the truck was not yet known, Vancouver Fire Department spokesman Joe Spatz said.
“’If we can repair it, we will,” Spatz said. The cost to replace a ladder truck runs between $900,000 and $1 million, he said.
Wind gusts have already reached speeds of 39 mph at Pearson Airfield, according to the National Weather Service in Portland. The weather service has issued a wind advisory for the Vancouver and Clark County area today, in effect from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Thousands of customers in Clark County throughout the day experienced a power outage. At its height, more than 5,000 customers were without power.
Other roads were closed for various lengths of time including Amboy Road between Elliott Road and Morning Drive, Southeast Mill Plain between Southeast 123rd and 126th Avenues and eastbound state Highway 14 between Lieser and Ellsworth roads.
Other damage throughout the region was reported including downed power lines and residences damaged by the wind. One mobile home near Brush Prairie had its roof blown off in the wind.
South winds were expected to reach speeds of 25 to 35 mph with gusts as high as 50 mph possible, the weather service reported. The agency advised that the strongest winds are expected between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Motorists in high profile vehicles are advised to use caution until the winds subside.
Oregon man killed by falling tree limb
Authorities say a 67-year-old Oregon man was killed when he was struck by a tree limb.
The Washington County Sheriff’s Office says a neighbor found Ronald Kibert of Tigard under the large limb Friday morning. The neighbors performed CPR until paramedics arrived, but Kibert was pronounced dead at OHSU hospital.
The sheriff’s office says Kibert liked to take walks in the area where the tree fell.
The wind advisory is also in effect in the Portland area and south into Salem, Ore. According to the Portland General Electric website, as many as 200,000 people in Clackamas, Columbia, Marion, Multnomah, Polk, Washington and Yamhill counties were without power as of 11:40 a.m.
