Big Mountain goes dark

Snow across Flathead Valley leaves some residents without electricity Tuesday

About a foot and a half of new heavy, wet snow wreaked havoc with power lines Tuesday on Big Mountain, forcing the ski resort to shut down by early afternoon and swamping police dispatchers with calls.

Bee Broadcasting's FM radio stations, serviced by a tower on the mountain, also lost power off and on for three hours.

Weather-related electrical outages were reported Tuesday across the Flathead Valley, in Columbia Heights, Rhodes Draw, Ashley Lake and Lakeside, according to Flathead Electric Cooperative spokeswoman Stephanie Wallace. Problems in the outlying areas were resolved fairly quickly, she said.

About 1,500 of Flathead Electric's Whitefish customers were without power Tuesday afternoon. Whitefish areas affected included Grouse Mountain, Lion Mountain, Karrow, Lupfer, Texas and O'Brien avenues, Whitefish Hills, Birch Point, and State Park Road.

Big Mountain's problems began at 5:15 a.m. when power went out for the first time. Electricity was restored for a while after that, but died again around 8:15 a.m. when the ski patrol was halfway up the lift line, resort spokesman Brian Schott said. A backup generator was powered up to get the patrol off the lift, and by 11:30 a.m. the power was back on again.

But not for long.

Within an hour, the power was off again, stranding about 200 skiers for more than an hour on Chair 2.

"We had made the decision that we were not comfortable sending people to the summit, so we didn't open Chairs 1 and 7," Schott said. "We opened Chairs 2, 3, 6 and the Easy Rider, and they ran for about an hour when we lost power at 12:30 p.m."

Chairs 3, 6 and the Easy Rider easily were cleared with auxiliary power, but a mechanical problem with the generator on Chair 2 stalled the clearing that lift. The ski patrol made the decision to evacuate some of the stranded skiers with harnesses on Chair 2 to lighten the load, Schott said, and when that was done the generator began to work.

"After Chair 2 was cleared about 1:30 p.m., we called it for the day," he said.

For safety reasons, the resort can't operate exclusively with backup power, Schott said.

"Safety supersedes any issue," he said. "It's always a big disappointment when there's 14 inches of new snow and you can't ski it."

Snow continued to fall throughout the day, adding another 4 inches to the 14 inches that had fallen by 7 a.m. Tuesday.

Refunds were given to anyone who had purchased a lift ticket for the day.

Wallace said Flathead Electric dispatched three crews to deal with the Big Mountain problems.

"We'll keep a crew up there overnight to patrol the line," she said. "We have to be proactive."

Crews took the extra precaution of removing heavy snow from many trees close to power lines, Wallace added.

About 15 to 20 trees went down on power lines, some uprooting because of saturated soil, crewmen reported.

Power was restored by 1:23 p.m. and stayed on for the rest of the day on Big Mountain, Wallace said.

But in town, power was out through the afternoon in some residential areas. Power was restored to the majority of Flathead Electric customers by 5 p.m. - and to all by 5:50 p.m.

The cause was a power line in a tree on West Lakeshore Drive.

The Whitefish Police Department received about 100 calls. Some were alarms that automatically call the department if a problem occurs at sewer lift stations, businesses or other locations. The bulk of those calls came after 3 p.m.

The Police Department has a powerful battery backup and wasn't affected, dispatcher Bonnie Brown said.

Drivers dealt with traffic lights that went dim and other inconveniences. Residents across town called police to say their power was out.

Some had legitimate concerns, such as an elderly woman who worried about power for her oxygen tanks.

Typically, emergency services encourage residents to call neighbors to see if their power is also out. Unless there is an emergency, it is the utility company that should know about an outage, not law enforcement.

But, "If there is an emergency, call at any time," Brown said.

Weather was the suspected culprit in communications problems Tuesday morning at the Sheriff's Office.

"We had to go on a backup system," said Undersheriff Mike Meehan.

Communications signals were hitting a repeater in the Swan instead of the Big Mountain repeater that typically is used, he said.

A technician for the department was called in and "got everything fixed" without any interruption in services, Meehan said.

BEE BROADCASTING received "hundreds and hundreds of calls" from listeners wondering what the problem was, General Sales Manager Patrick Lash said.

"It's not the kind of day you want to wake up to," he said with a laugh.

Bee's four FM stations were affected; the company's two AM stations were OK because they are powered by the radio tower on Voerman Road. Lash said the station tried to stimulate backup generators, but with a full-blown outage it was difficult to make the switch.