POST FALLS - Wednesday's wind storm wreaked havoc throughout North Idaho, causing utility crews to scramble into the evening to restore power for customers.

John Livingston, National Weather Service meteorologist, said gusts reached 44 mph at the Coeur d'Alene Airport in the early afternoon and 61 mph at Magee Peak at 4,700 feet in the mountains of the central Panhandle.

"It's tapered off toward the evening," he said.

Temperatures are predicted to be around 40 today and Friday before colder weather and 1-2 inches of snow are expected Friday night and Saturday.

Debbie Simock, Avista spokeswoman, said the company had 6,815 customers systemwide in Idaho and Washington without power early Wednesday afternoon.

"Mostly related to weather," she said of the outages. "We've had a lot of trees come in contact with power lines causing outages. But one was related to a squirrel on a line in Coeur d'Alene."

The morning squirrel incident caused about 2,000 outages for nine minutes.

By mid-afternoon, 2,100 were still without power, with most of those in the Harrison, Kellogg, St. Maries and Grangeville areas.

Coeur d'Alene and Post Falls customers were mostly unaffected in the afternoon and 29 were without power in Spirit Lake.

Simock said she expected most of the remaining outages to be fixed by early evening.

Kootenai Electric Cooperative also had outages throughout the day.

About 2,500 members in the Hauser and Post Falls areas and the west side of Lake Coeur d'Alene were affected as of the late afternoon.

The outage at Rockford Bay on Lake Coeur d'Alene, which started in the morning, was caused by underground equipment failure.