Another huge windstorm struck Whidbey Island early Friday morning, knocking out power to homes and closing schools on North, Central and South Whidbey Island.

Power crews were busy Friday morning assessing the damage that knocked out power to all of Whidbey Island.

As of early Friday afternoon, there wasn’t information on when power will be restored.

“It’s going to be, in some instances, days,” said Martha Monfried, spokesperson for Puget Sound Energy.

She said there are 200 crews working regionally to repair the damage. “We’re really asking for some patience,” Monfried said.

The high winds, which measured 47 miles per hour with gusts reaching at least 64 mph, knocked down trees and caused standing water on parts of West Beach Road.

Roads were covered with branches and trees were dangling on power lines on the side roads up and down the island.

Jan Smith with the Island County Sheriff’s Office said low-lying areas on the west side of Whidbey Island bore the brunt of the storm.

She said West Beach Road was closed Friday morning because of water over the roadway, which would only worsen as the tide came in.

With the sun inexplicably shining as trees blew down, the main attraction in Oak Harbor was West Beach Road where formidable swells crashed over bulkheads and water made its way onto and across the thoroughfare.

“This is awesome,” said Jake Ford of Oak Harbor just as he and his brother Judd got doused by a gigantic wave at the pullout by Joseph Whidbey State Park.

A King 5 news crew pulled into town at 2 a.m. in anticipation of the storm. At 9 a.m., the wind was howling and Jane McCarthy of the news station, decked out in heavy rain gear, braved the pounding surf and carried out her duties fearlessly and uncomfortably in front of the camera. Hazard pay might be in order.

West Beach Road isn’t the only road that was closed because of the storm. The Deception Pass Bridge was closed from 4 a.m. to 7 a.m. due to the high winds. Smith added that the Silver Lake area is impassable.

First light reveals storm damage

People spent Friday morning recovering from the storm.

“We lost about seven more big trees,” said Mike Rice, who lives on five acres north of Oak Harbor. About half of the trees on his property were uprooted while the other half snapped in two.

He spent his Friday morning sawing branches to clear his driveway to allow his wife to go to work. Being a physical education teacher at Oak Harbor Middle School, Rice had the day off, as did all teachers and students on the island.

Emergency shopping sprees

Others spent the morning collecting items to help them get through the power outage. Some people arrived at Ace Hardware looking for supplies, purchasing items to heat their homes and power appliances. Batteries, propane and kerosene were popular items at Ace, which was expecting another delivery on Friday.

Keith McFaul lost power in his Oak Harbor home, but his family, wife Carman, kids Kenton and Carolyn, are in good spirits.

“Well, so far so good,” McFaul said. “We’re camping out in the living room.”

Buying fuel at Ace was his first stop.

“I’m looking for some fuel for the stove and I’m looking for some coffee,” McFaul said.

The storm left islanders flocking to locations with power Friday morning.

Seeking out heat, power and coffee

From the moment it opened, The Daily Grind on City Beach Road was packed to the gills with customers.

Thanks to a generator supplied by People’s Bank, the Daily Grind and other businesses in the building were at full power — and that meant coffee fans flocked to The Daily Grind.

Daily Grind owners Charlie Chong and his wife Chong Hyung brought in extra help to keep the orders of breakfast sandwiches and drinks coming.

Kirsten Davis and a co-worker from Carla’s Shear Inspiration headed to the coffee shop with five kids in tow.

“There’s no school today so everyone’s home,” Davis said.

The kids waited patiently for their hot chocolates as the crew behind the counter at Daily Grind worked feverishly to fill orders.

“It was cold and the wind was blowing through my window even though it was shut,” said one small boy.

Ross Wilhelm had the inside scoop about Daily Grind being open — his daughter, Kate, works there.

“We headed here because we knew the power here was guaranteed,” Wilhelm said.

The night before, Wilhelm said he made slight preparations at home — locating flashlights, candles and batteries, but he said he didn’t feel the need to over prepare.

“We’ve lived here since 1986 so we’ve weathered a few storms,” he said. “You just come to expect it and know it’ll be over eventually. We’ll probably get to catch up on some reading in the meantime.”

Despite the lackadaisical approach to the storm, Wilhelm admits it did pack a punch.

“This was definitely one of the worst I’ve seen in a long time,” he said.

The Whidbey News-Times managed to get the paper out with the help of a generator. Its regular phone service was out due to the loss of power.

I-COM, running with the aid of an Uninterrupted Power Supply system that works in conjunction with a large generator to eliminate power spikes, took 323 calls from noon Thursday to mid-morning Friday.

“This has been a solid volume of calls,” said Tom Shaughnessy, I-COM director. “That’s just the nature of the beast.”

The dispatch center doubled staff beginning at 7 p.m. Thursday, readying themselves for the flood of calls. For the dispatchers who were needed but out of phone contact, law enforcement personnel were dispatched to retrieve the employees. Shaughnessy, cool, calm, and collected, said his staff has been more than up to the challenge.

“We’ve been through this before, as recently as last month,” the director said, recalling the snow storm of late November. “They know how to do their jobs and they do it well.”

Calls tapered off in the wee hours of Friday morning, but picked up again around 9 or 10 a.m., when citizens were awake and noticing large trees in their living rooms that were not there the night before or power lines hanging dangerously low. With the advanced power system, I-COM dispatchers were poised to dutifully man their stations and offer assistance until the storm died down and the proverbial dust settled.

“We’re kind of the heartbeat, so we have to keep it going,” Shaughnessy said.

Ray Merrill, Oak Harbor Fire Department battalion chief, said there were plenty of trees and power lines down, but with no injuries, a bulk of the calls were service related.

Less damage than November storm

Marv Koorn, chief of the North Whidbey Fire and Rescue, said there was actually less damage with this storm than there was with the one in November when heavy snow wreaked havoc with the trees.

“We probably had about one-third of the calls we did with the November storm,” he said. “We’ve received a couple of calls of houses with trees on them and there was a house on West Beach that had the windows blown out that we boarded up but other than that, it’s just one of those standard ‘trees on the road’ storm.”

Koorn said the department went on “area call” status during the night.

“We didn’t call in any extra personnel, we just called in those volunteers who were available,” he said. “We actually ended up sending people home during the night because we had more people than we felt we needed.”

Koorn said more calls were starting to come in during the morning.

“Now that people are up, we are getting more reports of wires and trees down,” he said. “As of this morning, we have received no reports of any significant damage.”

Taking shelter from the storm

With the power outages, emergency shelters were being set up throughout the island.

The American Red Cross set up a shelter at the Oak Harbor Senior Center on Jerome Street, a respite center was set up at the Coupeville Recreation Hall and a shelter was set up at Trinity Lutheran Church in Freeland, said Smith of the Sheriff’s Office.

She said hundreds of trees were down throughout the island but she wasn’t aware of any serious injuries or damage to property.

For people who want to know about road conditions, she said they should call 511.

All of Whidbey Island lost power in the big storm, which left an estimated one million homes in the Northwest without electricity. Busy officials from Puget Sound Energy couldn’t be reached to comment on when power will be restored.

News-Times reporters Nathan Whalen, Paul Boring, Cynthia Woolbright and Tim Adams contributed to this story.