KALISPELL — Crews worked quickly in the Flathead Valley to restore power to all Flathead Electric Cooperative members during Sunday’s windstorm.
“Really responded quickly and in mass, they knew they wanted to knock this thing down,” said Flathead Electric Cooperative Spokeswoman Wendy Ostrom-Price.
Ostrom-Price said more than 20 crews responded immediately to reports of power outages.
“We had about 20 outages going on at one time, impacting 2,900 of our members,” said Ostrom-Price
She said the hardest hit areas included Somers, West Glacier and Ashley Lake.
Ostrom-Price said outages started being reported around 3 p.m. with restoration being fully restored to the majority of customers within five to six hours.
“There were some spot outages that weren’t restored until midnight, 1 a.m. but for the most part restoration was very steady,” Ostrom-Price tells MTN News.
She said high winds were short-lived Sunday compared to a major windstorm that struck the Flathead Valley back in early January.
“The last time that we had a big windstorm it was so prolonged that every time we put lines up, a tree would take them down again, this one was such that once restoration was complete, we did not see recurring outages at that area,” Ostrom-Price recalled.
She said wind speeds varied anywhere from 30-to-40 mph in the Flathead Valley with gusts up to 50 mph near West Glacier. \
