Damaging winds cause widespread power outages

Widespread power outages affected thousands of homes across Northwest Montana on Saturday as strong winds hit the region.

In a media release Saturday evening, Flathead Electric Co-op said that the damaging winds caused trees and branches to fall on power lines. Wind gusts in Kalispell topped out at 47 mph, while they hit 69 mph along U.S. 2 near Glacier Park, according to the National Weather Service in Missoula. Point 6 in the mountains near Missoula recorded a gust of 99 mph.

Outages were reported throughout the Flathead Electric Co-op’s service territory from Libby to the west, Big Mountain to the north, south to Swan Lake, northeast to Essex and points in between, the Co-op stated.

The area between west Kalispell and Libby was the most damage, the media release noted. At the peak, FEC experienced up to 90 separate outages, impacting approximately 10,000 members.

“Crews will likely be working through the night and are continuing their efforts to make repairs and restore power, but you can anticipate further interruptions in service due to residual impacts and damage to the system,” the Co-op warned. “Power to the majority of members should be restored by midnight, but regretfully, some members may be without power into the morning.”

Flathead Electric officials are aware of most outages, but people should still call and report them at 751-4449.

“Your call will be put directly through to the automated system to leave a message due to the extraordinarily high volume of calls, and the need for dispatchers to prioritize 911 calls,” the Co-op said.