Wind knocks out power

The Daily Inter Lake

Small pockets of Flathead Valley residents remained without electricity Tuesday after a Monday-night storm caused widespread power outages.

Crews worked throughout the day to restore power to about 500 homes in Essex, where winds reached up to 49 mph.

And while electricity to most areas west of Kalispell was restored Tuesday morning, scattered islands of homes without power remained into the evening.

Overall, the storm disrupted service to about 20,000 people, according to Flathead Electric Cooperative spokeswoman Wendy Ostrom-Price.

The first outages were reported about 4 p.m. in the Emmons Canyon Road area near Kila.

As the storm moved east, winds up to 40 mph were reported in Kalispell.

Then trees felled by wind knocked out Flathead Electric substations in Bad Rock and West Glacier about 7 p.m., throwing most of the Canyon area into darkness. That outage lasted about five hours.

Fallen trees also caused outages in portions of Lakeside and Bigfork and in areas near Swan and Echo lakes.

Downed power lines were reported on Flathead Lake Lodge Road, Second Avenue East in Kalispell, Blankenship Road, Gladys Glen Road, Coram Stage Road, Armory Road in Whitefish, and in several areas along U.S. 2.

Outages were reported as far away as Libby and Eureka.

Scattered outages may yet occur as storm damage continues to reveal itself, Ostrom-Price said.

The west side of Glacier National Park also was hit by the high winds, with downed trees blocking some roads Tuesday morning.

"There was a lot of downed trees in the park, especially in areas like Sun Road and Camas Road," said Melissa Wilson, the park's public information officer.

There were downed trees in Apgar Village and the park headquarters and housing areas, where the power was out for about eight hours after the wind hit, Wilson said.

Park road crews and rangers were out early in the morning, quickly clearing trees that blocked roads, Wilson said.

There was only minor damage caused by trees falling on guardrails along Sun Road in the Avalanche Campground area.