Storm clean up stretches two days

Flathead Electric Cooperative crews continued working Sunday to restore electricity to about 100 members who were still without power after a storm roared through the valley Saturday, dumping a record amount of rain.

“We have five of our eight crews out. The others are getting some rest after 20-plus hours of work and will come back out,” Wendy Ostrom-Price, the power company’s public relations officer, said Sunday afternoon. “Crews will be working throughout the day, into the evening and probably through the rest of the week.”

The remaining power outages were located mostly in the Evergreen and Willow Glen areas.

Cleaning up after Saturday’s storm remained a “work in progress,” Ostrom-Price said.

Lots of trees, lines and poles went down in the storm. According to law enforcement dispatch records, authorities responded to at least 30 calls reporting downed power lines Saturday evening. Calls reporting downed trees and power lines were still coming in Sunday evening.

“Most of our outages are weather-related and that was a fast and furious storm. ... Little by little we’ll get full restoration, making repairs and replacing some wires and poles,” Ostrom-Price said.

More than 10,600 members were without power at one point Saturday because of the storm. Most of those outages were in Kalispell, Whitefish and Columbia Falls, while Evergreen was the hardest hit.

Saturday’s rainfall of .77 of an inch broke the daily record for June 23 of .68 of an inch, set in 1968. It also pushed the total amount of rainfall this June to a new record of 5.73 inches. The prior record of 5.66 inches was set in 2005.

The rainfall put the Whitefish River within inches of flood stage. The river as measured in Kalispell was running at 8.19 feet on Sunday; flood stage is 8.3 feet. High water from the Whitefish River was flooding adjacent fields near West Evergreen Drive.

The main Flathead River was a foot below flood stage on Sunday.