A large cold front moving into Utah brought strong winds overnight and through the morning in Tooele County Thursday, causing power outages and toppling trees.
Northeast Tooele County experienced gusts of over 70 mph around 3 a.m., with strong gusts in the upper 40s and lower 50s in miles per hour, according to National Weather Service forecaster Glen Merrill. At Lake Point, wind gusts in excess of 60 mph were recorded, as well as an isolated, unverified gust of over 80 mph.
As the morning progressed, winds were expected to change from the south to west by northwest, Merrill said. With the cold front moving through, gusts in excess of 60 mph were expected.
The strong winds took down four 30 to 40 foot-tall pine trees in the Tooele City Cemetery. Gusts also moved some smaller structures in the city, including a carport on 880 East near the intersection with Droubay Road. It knocked down mailboxes before coming to rest against a neighbor’s home.
As the cold front rolled through Tooele and Stansbury Park around 11 a.m., it brought strong winds, hail, lightning and thunder. Power lines near Stansbury High School were knocked down as a result of the storm system, according to Tooele County dispatch.
Power outages occurred throughout Tooele County, including about 2,900 customers losing power around 3:46 a.m. when two circuits at a substation were affected by the storm, according to David Eskelsen with Rocky Mountain Power. While most customers in the county had power restored by 7 a.m., there were still 1,700 without power around 8 a.m. Thursday.
The power outage also affected the Tooele County Dispatch Center, which lost power around 3:40 a.m., according to Tooele County Sheriff Paul Wimmer. The backup generator for the dispatch center failed to start up due to an issue with a circuit board that caused the uninterrupted power supply, which bridges the gap until the generator fires up, to fail after running longer than it is designed.
In the case of a complete power outage, emergency calls are rerouted to the backup at the Utah Valley Dispatch Special Service District, Wimmer said. Anyone with an emergency would be able to call 911 without an interruption, he said.
The dispatch center’s generator is tested weekly and had not failed in any of the previous maintenance startups, Wimmer said. By 7:45 a.m., the dispatch center was back in service and receiving calls, the sheriff said.