Power outages linger for second day

The ring of chainsaws could be heard across the valley Monday as folks worked to clean up trees and branches that came crashing down during a powerful burst of severe weather Sunday morning.

The storm initially knocked out power to more than 30,000 Flathead Electric Co-op customers. Crews worked throughout the night and by Monday morning had brought the power back on for over 25,000 co-op members. As of Monday morning, about 9,000 customers remained without power.

“This storm his us quickly and it hit us hard,” the electric co-op stated in a message to customers Monday. “The outage numbers were initially so high because several transmission lines and distribution substations were impacted.”

Several crews from out of the area were called to help local linemen. The electric co-op expected to repair the larger remaining outages on Monday. Some medium sized and smaller outages will go into Tuesday and Wednesday. Members whose outage was caused by a secondary wire going down could be without power through Thursday.

“The reality is that it doesn’t do us (or our members) any good to even start on those smaller outages until we have all the primary wire back up and energized,” the co-op stated in an outage update Monday morning. “If your secondary wire is down, please make plans for a prolonged outage.”

Ferndale and Swan Lake were the hardest hit areas, with one lineman reporting over 50 trees down in a 2-mile stretch along Montana 83. Six crews were working in that area Monday morning.

Two crews were working in the Whitefish area, one west of Whitefish on Lion Mountain and the other in the Happy Valley area. They expected both areas would be restored Monday.

Near Evergreen, the River Road outage was expected to be repaired Monday. It was unlikely that crews would get to the other East Evergreen, West Evergreen, or Helena Flats areas impacted.

In Kalispell, crews were working in the Woodland area that saw numerous downed trees along Conrad Drive and in Woodland Park.

The Columbia Falls and West Glacier areas were expected to be restored Monday, although the Jellison Road and Trumble Creek areas could be without power for longer.

The storm hit the area at about 8:20 a.m. Sunday, with heavy rain and wind gusts up to 69 mph.

Ferndale Volunteer Fire Department Chief Ken Sharr said Montana 83 was closed from Ferndale to Swan Lake, and Montana 209 was closed from Ferndale Market to the fire hall due to downed power lines. Both roads were reopened around 12:30 p.m. Sunday.

“I couldn’t even begin to give you a guess of how many lines were down. It was a lot,” Sharr said.

Many of his fellow responders had to cut down trees to get to the fire station, and while they received 12 official calls on Sunday, Ferndale Fire responded to a far greater number of people as folks approached their trucks by vehicle or on foot to ask for help.

Brian Truckey, owner and general manager of the Ferndale Market, said he’d never experienced such a high volume of rain and didn’t notice the wind until he made his way to work and observed multiple trees and power lines down.

“I think the biggest, encouraging thing to report on is everybody in the neighborhood was out helping one another, clearing debris off the road,” Truckey said. “Storms like that bring the community together even more … Our snowplow guy, Bob, has a Case tractor and he was out there pushing trees off the road for people, cleaning the highway.”

Whitefish Fire Chief Joe Page said his department responded to 47 calls, most for trees down on wires and trees falling on houses. He said the Happy Valley area was the hardest hit, with dozens of trees across roads and falling onto buildings. One boat was destroyed by a downed tree, he said.

“This was the biggest [windstorm] I’ve seen as far as how widespread it was,” Page said. “The power company did a great job responding.”

Kalispell Parks and Recreation Director Chad Fincher said the city is currently using a “three-phased” approach to the thousands of trees that have been downed throughout the city.

Fincher said they are currently addressing trees on top of homes and cars. Next, they will work on “hangers,” or branches still hanging that pose a threat of falling on property in the future.

Finally, they will move on to the debris that is scattered around the area. Fincher estimated it could take four weeks before the clean-up is complete. They are currently onboarding a contractor to expedite the process.

“On every block there’s something that’s got to be dealt with,” Fincher reported.

He explained the conditions of Sunday’s storm formed a particularly destructive combination as strong winds meshed with the wet spring soil to uproot far more trees than Kalispell normally experiences during a storm.

Fincher urged Kalispell residents to be patient and understand that their calls may not be answered right away. He also advised against putting debris in alleyways or solid waste containers and assisting with official cleanup operations on city property. Debris that is gathered in the boulevard should all be laid in the same direction to make for easier disposal, and private trees should be taken to the county landfill.

Fincher added they hope the initial cleanup of Woodland Park will be done in time for day camps starting next Wednesday.