PACIFIC COUNTY — A quick peek up onto the hillside above state Route 105 just outside Raymond will have anyone wondering, “What happened to the tallest radio tower?” Residents in the area with any of the cellular carriers, including Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile, can tell you precisely what happened.

“The damn tower broke in half.”

What was supposed to be a typical winter-like Pacific Northwest storm over Feb. 24-25 turned out to be among the worst storms the county has seen in years. This most recent storm has not been named, but it sure packed a punch.

Winds for the storm hit early on Feb. 24, with gusts easily up to 40-50 mph throughout most of the day. By late evening, the pummeling was unleashed, and sustained winds were 30-40 mph with gusts of 60-70 mph.

The highest wind gust was 88 mph, observed at the mouth of the Columbia River and Cape Disappointment. The winds, including strong sustained winds, held strong for over 12 straight hours. The Astoria-Megler Bridge was functionally impassible in the middle of the night, with gusts topping 60 mph on the high-rise.

At the peak of the storm, every major roadway in and out of the county was either partially or completely blocked by debris, including trees. There were widespread power outages, with part of the northern peninsula without electricity for most of the following day.

One of the biggest affects of the storm in the north county region arrived when many residents noticed they no longer had cell phone service around midnight to 1 a.m. The belief was that it was just a usual major storm outage — on the contrary, it was anything but that.

The Holy Cross radio towers site, located atop the hillside just outside Raymond above the rock quarry, provides the region with its primary cell phone coverage. When the cell phone signal went down, so did part of the tower.

It is unclear why the tower failed during the storm, since towers are built to withstand hurricane-force winds. It could be some time before it is determined, which may not be made public because it’s a private commercial tower.

The outage affected several thousand cell phone users, notably T-Mobile, which has been the most significantly affected. Cell phone users could only connect to services via WiFi.

Approximately 48 hours after the tower crumbled, T-Mobile rolled in two SatCOLT trucks, which are highly mobile heavy-duty trucks with cell towers built in. The vehicles can roll into an area, such as those with disasters, and restore temporary service relatively quickly.

It is expected that the cell tower outage could last through at least July for all three cell phone carriers. Verizon and AT&T were initially able to keep service going with a backup generator but have since lost all power at the Holy Cross tower site.

T-Mobile plans to keep the SatCOLTS that have already been deployed in the area until there is a permanent tower solution. The company is also evaluating ways to increase the service coverage area covered by the mobile SatCOLTs.