by Staff Report
Downed power lines caused traffic problems in two separate locations in Skagit County this evening.
Highway 20 was closed near Hamilton because power lines had fallen on the highway.
Meanwhile, another downed line that was on fire Highway 534, near the Conway-Lake McMurray exit of Interstate 5, also blocked traffic from 5:30 to 6:20 p.m.
A trumpeter swan had either flown or been blown into the power lines, said Sean McDermott, a state Department of Transportation spokesman.
In Hamilton, starting at 4:50 p.m. today, traffic was detoured to the Lyman-Hamilton Road. Puget Sound Energy crews were working on the problem at 6:20 p.m., McDermott said.
Although scattered outages were reported to the utility company, it wasn’t immediately known whether the downed lines caused those problems.
