COEUR d’ALENE — A stick came in contact with a power line at about 2 p.m. today and caused a 35-minute power outage for 2,281 Avista customers in the downtown core.

According to Avista spokeswoman Debbie Simock, crews were working on repairing a power line, so they temporarily interrupted a section of power line for safety reasons.

“It’s called a hot line hold,” she said. “Then a stick came into contact with a power line somewhere else in the system.”

With the hold in place, Simock said, the system could not repair itself as it was designed to do.

Ordinarily, she said, the stick would have caused a small blip in the power, but while the hold was in place, crews had to physically walk the power lines and visually inspect them before turning the power back on.

“That is another safety precaution,” she said.

The outage was contained to an area south of Ironwood Square and north of McEuen Field. It was between the mouth of the Spokane River and 15th Street to the east.