KALISPELL — Approximately 3,300 Flathead Electric Cooperative members remain without power Saturday following an atmospheric river and hurricane-force winds that initially knocked out electricity to over 30,000 customers.
In a press release, Flathead Electric said the cooperative made significant progress Saturday, restoring power to another 700 members since their morning update. At 1:30 p.m. Saturday, the co-op sent text messages to all affected members with cell phone numbers on file, including a video update from Chief Operating Officer Jason Williams.
"Our thoughts are with our members still out of power," Williams said. "Please also keep our many crew members in your thoughts today as they tackle restoring electricity amongst massive, uprooted trees and difficult ground and weather conditions. We are grateful for your continued patience with this very challenging situation, and we will get your power restored as soon as we can."
The co-op said workers made excellent progress Friday clearing trees and improving access for line crews, which the cooperative hopes will lead to significant restoration progress Saturday. However, 125 individual outages still require repair, with some involving complex and time-consuming restoration processes.
The cooperative announced it will transition outage information messaging back to its Outage Map at outage.flathead.coop, moving away from updates on the homepage and Facebook page. Members are encouraged to check the map to ensure their outages are properly reported, even if previously reported.
No estimated restoration times have been assigned to remaining outages.
For members experiencing medical or other emergencies, officials recommend calling 911. In Flathead County, the Office of Emergency Services and Red Cross are prepared to open a shelter at the Fairgrounds upon public request by calling 406-758-2111. An emergency shelter is currently open in Libby at the Memorial Center.
