Power outage snarls Kalispell traffic
<p>Kalispell Police Officer A.J. McDonnell directs traffic at the intersection of U.S. 93 and Reserve Drive Monday afternoon after a power outage caused several traffic lights to fail.</p>
A power outage Monday afternoon left homeowners, businesses - and traffic lights - without electricity at the north end of Kalispell.
The outage affected key traffic signals at West Reserve Drive intersections with U.S. 93 and Whitefish Stage Road.
The Flathead Electric Cooperative outage started a little after 2:30 p.m. with as many as 2,100 members affected. Electricity was out in much of the West Valley area, in the northwest corner of Kalispell and in areas between Kalispell and Whitefish.
By 5:30 p.m., power had been restored to about three-fourths of members who had lost electricity, but crews were still out working to restore power and identify the outage's cause.
"It's impacting the Stillwater substation on Whitefish Stage Road and feeders off of that," said Wendy Ostrom Price, public relations officer for Flathead Electric.
"We have not been able to determine a cause, which is not uncommon. But that doesn't keep us from restoring power. Generally, the closer you are the sooner you come back on," she said.
The Kalispell Police Department and Montana Highway Patrol were out directing traffic at the busy intersections.
"We've got congestion up there, backed up about a mile in certain directions," Kalispell Chief of Police Roger Nasset said during the power outage.
"It's been a tremendous drain for us manpower-wise, taking half our shift off the street to direct traffic."
A number of businesses in the area and Glacier High School lost power during the outage, Nasset said.