Whidbey Island is still mopping up after an unusual late summer wind storm pummeled the area Saturday.

The wind gusted to 70 mph at times, snapping trees and flinging branches.

By the time things quieted down, thousands of island residents were without power and the ground looked like somebody upstairs pushed about a hundred Douglas firs through a blender.

A wind-whipper isn’t unusual for Whidbey, but what is strange is the timing. Storms like Saturday’s usually don’t arrive until October or November, said Victoria Bard, a weather forecaster at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.

The highest winds were recorded on base at just after noon, she said. The storm had sustained average winds of 22 mph. For two minutes during the storm, the winds continually blew at 54 mph.

There were no storm-related deaths reported on the island, but all that blowing caused plenty of havoc.

Trees came down across roads and fell atop power lines all over the island. The wind snapped one of the blades of the windmill at the Auld Holland Inn in Oak Harbor. It wrecked most of the city’s hanging flower baskets downtown and damaged a few city parks.

North Whidbey Fire and Rescue crews were busy all day responding to the 65 calls that came in during the storm — that’s more calls than they normally receive in a week.

The wind kicked loose all manner of small items in area yards and delivered them to the neighbors.

One Oak Harbor man, Andy Needham, posted a photo of a pint-sized blue cape to a NAS Whidbey public forum with this plea: “ATTENTION SEAPLANE BASE SUPERHEROES: I happened to notice the wind blew a superhero’s cape into my yard this weekend. If it’s yours, please come get it. I will not reveal your identity to the public.”

At the peak of the storm, Puget Sound Energy crews had a list of 200 separate “outage events.” Each of those events affected dozens to hundreds of people.

Crews found it difficult to fix the outages because many roads were blocked.

“This was a tricky one,” said Ray Lane, a PSE spokesman. “We had a lot of trees down and that proved to be an obstacle early on.”

“We couldn’t get places.”

City crews were all over Oak Harbor yesterday sweeping streets and cleaning up parks. Monday afternoon, city street workers Peter VonGrey and Jake Jansen were chucking tree hunks into the back of a city rig.

“This is our fifth load today,” Jansen said.

Four or five large oak tree limbs fell during the storm, and workers were still dealing with powerlines sagging across city streets Tuesday, said Rich Tyhuis, a city public works operations manager.

Dry trees still loaded with leaves may have contributed to the number of trees that went down, he said.

“You don’t usually see this kind of storm until November,” he said.

The city is sending out a letter to all its utilities customers, reminding them of how to dispose of storm debris. That place is not in the street.

“People are throwing things in the right-of-way and that’s a danger,” he said.

You can toss tree debris — but not other things like broken fences — into the city’s roll cart yard bin or call the city utilities office at 360-279-4530 to request a special pick up. That costs at least $10.

You can also haul to Mailliard’s Landing, 3068 N. Oak Harbor Road, in Oak Harbor or the Island County transfer station in Coupeville.

North Whidbey Fire Chief Mike Brown said he wants the storm to be a reminder that you and your family need to be prepared to take care of yourselves in the event of something worse.

“It’s a reminder we need to be prepared for the long-term.”