All that cold, dense air to our north and east created a very strong area of high pressure, and with lower pressure off our coast, it was a recipe for strong winds.

Gusty winds to 50-60 mph in some spots knocked out power for tens of thousands of utility customers Friday morning in the Puget Sound region -- hitting Pierce County especially hard as the strong northeast flow makes the turn around the southern end of the Olympics to head toward the low off the Oregon coast.

Enumclaw had a gust reported to 62 mph and Tacoma reported gusts to 40 mph.

A falling tree hit a Pierce County worker who was clearing another tree that had fallen on a road at Lake Tapps, pinning the Rydberg Fischerman by the legs until rescuers could make their way past other fallen trees to reach the scene. He was alert when taken to a hospital, and was in surgery Friday evening for multiple leg fractures.

It was one of just several trees down across the area. Lakewood reported that firefighters have responded to 75 calls for trees and power lines down, and that 50-100 trees have impacted homes and power lines through the city.

Video from Air 4 showed pictures of what appeared to be some damage to Lake Louise Elementary School in Lakewood.

Also, a power unit at U.S. Oil & Refining Company at the Port of Tacoma caught fire after a power hit. One of their units went down after the power spike, and upon restarting, some liquid got into the starter and created a fireball, but there were no injuries and there was no damage to the unit.

Meanwhile, Pierce County says winds damaged the ramp system at the Anderson Island ferry dock to where the ramp is hanging from the dock, and a pontoon and apron section of the ramp are under water.

A passenger-only ferry will start serving Anderson Island Saturday on an emergency basis. The ferry "Spirit," which is based in Bremerton, will be put into service until repairs are made to the ramp system at the Anderson Island ferry dock.

Pacific Lutheran University canceled classes for the day, and Fort Lewis said they would begin operating on a reduced staff basis due to strong winds and widespread power outages.

Puget Sound Energy spokesman David Reid says it has 40,000 outages in Thurston, King, Pierce and Whatcom counties as of 4 p.m. Friday -- and that doesn't include another 25,000 that had been without power earlier but were restored. He says the outages started about 2:30 when winds started gusting. They had 80 crews working to restore power, even having some crews come in from Portland and California.

Mike Thorne with Snohomish County PUD says four substations went out just after 5 o'clock, affecting 22,000 customers in Snohomish, Clearview, Mill Creek and Bothell, but all were back online by the afternoon.

And Tacoma City Light also reported about 26,000 without power in northeast Tacoma and Fife. Seattle City Light just had a few thousand briefly without power.

The winds also combined to make for a chilly day around the area. Wind chills were in the teens and 20s for most of the day.

The winds were in the process of dying down Friday evening, and were expected to continue to drop through the night.