Electricity restored after major morning outage

Nearly 14,000 Northwest Montana electricity customers were without power for about an hour Thursday morning.

A lightning strike apparently caused a Bonneville Power Administration transmission line to lose power about 7:15 a.m. 

Crews were dispatched to the line serving the area from Lakeside to Hot Springs and found damaged insulators, BPA Public Affairs Specialist Kevin Wingert said.

Power was rerouted to restore service within an hour, and repairs on the line were completed by noon, he said. 

The affected area included south Kalispell, Lakeside, Somers and Bigfork all the way to Hot Springs, according to Wendy Ostrom-Price, spokeswoman for Flathead Electric Cooperative. 

At one point power was out for 13,927 Flathead Electric members.

Traffic signals through downtown Kalispell also were affected.

After BPA switched its power load, Flathead Electric restored electric service to co-op members.