North Shore power outage due to maintenance

Power outages caused by routine maintenance impacted the North Shore area of the Flathead on Tuesday morning.

About 1,300 Flathead Electric Cooperative users in Bigfork, Echo Lake and Woods Bay lost power at 10:56 a.m. when crews killed power to the Lion Mountain substation for maintenance work.

Bonneville Power Administration power lines should have kept the lights on despite the substation powering down, but Flathead Electric spokeswoman Wendy Ostrom Price said shutting down power at the substation tripped the Bonneville breaker, cutting off power to transmission and distribution lines.

“It’s just a safety feature that (Bonneville) has in place. We were unaware of it,” Ostrom Price said. “We were able to figure it out very quickly.”

Ostrom Price said crews were able to get Bonneville’s distribution lines back to power in less than 20 minutes. Power has since been restored to the entire area. 

For future outage information, check the Flathead Electric Cooperative’s website.