From http://www.open.org/~memanage/disaster.htm

Hurricanes striking the Pacific Coast are a rarity, but circumstances combined to create a near hurricane like storm in October 1962 that hit northern California, Oregon and Washington. This storm is often referred to as Hurricane Freida. Although this storm hit during the Pacific hurricane season , it was not a true hurricane (or typhoon as tropical hurricane`s in the West Pacific are called). Effects included more than 50 deaths, winds as high as 119 mph in Portland, and a peak recorded gust of an almost unbelievable 176 mph on Mount Hebo on the Oregon coast (At that point the wind gauge failed). On page 80 of Richard A Keen`s book Skywatch: The Western Weather Guide, there`s a photo of the toppling of the tower on Campbell Hall on the Western Oregon State College campus during the 1962 Columbus Day Storm.

The storm began as Typhoon Frieda nine days earlier near Wake Island in the western Pacific. The storm stayed rather weak as a typhoon with 100 mph winds, before merging with an extratropical storm. The extratropical storm moved eastward across the Pacific and then northward along the Northwest Coast doing much damage. An article about the storm in the December 1962 issue of Weatherwise notes that even though the storm was called "Typhoon Frieda" or "Hurricane Frieda" when it hit the Northwest, it "did not possess a structure typical of tropical storms nor did it produce the torrential downpours of such disturbances when it passed along the Oregon Coast."

The Weatherwise article describes similar storms hitting the Northwest in 1880, 1921 and 1951. The storm was an unusual event that had started as a tropical cyclone but was no longer one when it hit.