Grays Harbor PUD Communications and Government Relations Director Ian Cope led a presentation to the Grays Harbor Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday that highlighted the district’s 2024 accomplishments and revenue, infrastructure improvements, and planned projects.

Cope was joined by Schuyler Burkhart, PUD General Manager, and District 3 Commissioner Jon Martin.

Arie Callaghan, Dave Timmons and Martin make up the Grays Harbor PUD elected board of commissioners.

According to the presentation, Grays Harbor PUD services 45,561 customers in the region. The District’s 165 full-time employees manage an electric and telecommunications system consisting of 1,720 miles of overhead and underground power lines, 36 substations and 350 miles of fiber optic cable. Grays Harbor PUD is actively working on expanding its fiber optic network.

Grays Harbor PUD replaced 540 poles in 2024, continued substation improvement work at Central Park, Highlands, and Electric Park, and installed 280,000 feet of power lines.

The District dealt with 390 outages in 2024, which was an increase from 230 in 2023.

“Working on the Washington coast, you expect wind and tree related outages to occur, but storm season hit Grays Harbor hard in 2024,” said PUD Engineering Director Tyson Reeves in a press release. “The bomb cyclone event in November and a number of widespread, storm related outages in January and December caused PUD outage numbers and customer hours to jump above average totals.”

According to that press release, November 2024 was the busiest month for PUD crews, who responded to 74 outages that month. As a result of those storms, downed trees were responsible for an uncharacteristically high number of outages. In all, the PUD responded to 246 tree related outages in 2024, well above the five-year average and nearly double the 129 that occurred in 2023. The areas most impacted by tree related outages were the North Beach, Central Park, Wishkah Valley and Lake Quinault areas.

“This is why we put such an emphasis on tree trimming and vegetation management,” said General Manager Burkhart. “Our engineers and crews have designed and built a strong and capable system, but with so many trees growing along the lines and strong winds coming off the coast, it is imperative that we remove ‘problem’ trees and cut back other vegetation to reduce the chance of storm related outages.”

Heading into 2025, Grays Harbor PUD commissioners have approved a $121.3 million budget with $12 million earmarked for capital projects. Also, the commissioners approved a new 20-year Bonneville Power Administration contract.

Grays Harbor PUD is in its 85th year of keeping the lights on in Grays Harbor County.