Tumbleweeds, trampolines, tree branches. Tri-Citians cleaning up after high-wind storm

Tri-Citians have been busy digging out of the mounds of tumbleweeds created by Saturday’s fierce wind storm.

A tumbleweed wall covered the entire front facade of the Pasco Walmart, blocking entrances to the store so customers had to push their way through the dry plants.

Videos shared on social media by customers showed the bottom rack of shopping carts filled with tumbleweeds, similar to the front grills of cars that ventured out into the storm.

Washington State Patrol Trooper Chris Thorson posted Saturday morning on Twitter: “#Tumblegeddon strikes again.”

The regional spokesman for the state patrol alerted motorists that a wall of tumbleweeds had blown across Interstate 82 south of Kennewick near the Highway 395 exit.

That was at 7:30 a.m. as the high winds were picking up.

Travel was reduced on I-82 to one eastbound lane while a Washington state Department of Transportation crew used a snowplow to clear it out. The removal effort took about one hour.

“It was crazy,” Thorson told the Tri-City Herald on Monday.

People reported seeing other snowplows used around the Tri-Cities to push tumbleweed piles off roadways.

Wind gusts in the area topped 50 mph, with the National Weather Service showing Rattlesnake Mountain ridge reached 102 mph.

A large trampoline blown from a Richland resident’s yard ended up along the side of Highway 240, between Duportail Street and Swift Boulevard.

A large branch also broke off a tree at a Richland apartment complex, landing across five parking spots filled with cars, according to a Facebook post.

At 7:51 a.m., a semi truck pulling a trailer was blown over on eastbound Highway 240, 11 miles west of West Richland.

The truck ended up on the opposite shoulder of the roadway.

Todd J. Kallstrom, 50, of Minnesota, was taken to Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland to be treated for injuries from the rollover.

“Trucks get blown over in this area by high wind several times a year,” Thorson said Saturday on Twitter.

On Monday, Thorson told the Herald that the state patrol had nine collisions on Saturday. None of them resulted in serious injuries.

Four of those crashes — on 240 between mileposts 10 and 20, along the Hanford reservation — definitely were wind related, he said. They happened between 4 a.m. and 10 :30 a.m.