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Windstorm blows through with little damage

RACHEL SUN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 3 years, 9 months AGO
by RACHEL SUN
Staff Writer | March 30, 2021 1:00 AM

A windstorm Sunday evening affected roughly 4,000 Northern Lights power customers in Bonner County, including residents in the Naples, Samuels, Sagle, Cocolalla and Priest Lake areas.

Avista Utilities officials said the company had roughly 18,600 customers total affected, and 120 incidents reported. In Bonner County, there were about 5,441 customers who experienced a disruption in service due to Sunday’s windstorm.

The areas hit hardest, according to the release, were Coeur d’Alene, St. Maries and Grangeville.

Problems started around 4:30 p.m. when winds reached their peak, said Kristin Mettke, engineering and operations manager at Northern Lights. All power for the company’s customers was restored by roughly 2 p.m. Monday.

Kristin Regier, an employee at Dominos, said she narrowly missed a falling tree during a pizza delivery in Dover.

"We see the worst of the worst," she said.

On the Sandpoint Local Forum on Facebook, some residents reported power outages, trees falling and road blockages in the Selle Valley, Dover and Gold Creek Road in Sandpoint.

“This wasn’t as bad for us as the windstorm January 13,” she said. “That was bad enough we had to do FEMA paperwork.”

In Kootenai County, Sunday's windstorm that sparked fears of a repeat of January’s destruction blew through the area with far less damage.

While wind gusts did exceed 50 mph at times, according to the National Weather Service, far fewer trees fell on streets. A few large trees fell on and around Lakeside Avenue, and another tree had reportedly crossed Coeur d’Alene Avenue.

A few property owners reported some damage to houses and out buildings.

"In the wake of Sunday's windstorm, Avista crews are working to restore power as quickly and safely as possible," Avista director of operations David Howell said Monday morning. "Strong winds, combined with wet, saturated soil resulted in trees coming into contact with our power poles and lines. We prepare for events like this, but you never fully know what will happen until the winds subside and our crews assess the damage.”

But by and large, that damage was minimal in comparison to the Jan. 13 storm that killed a Post Falls man, cut power to more than 30,000 residents and toppled hundreds of trees within the cities.

Tree service owners had only a fraction of calls Monday compared to the January calamity that knocked down trees en masse. Each of those employees individually attributed the softer landing to the lack of heavy rains like those that preceded the January storm.

But many of the trees that did fall Sunday knocked out power to Kootenai County residents.

Nearly all of the more-than 8,000 Avista customers who lost power in Coeur d’Alene, Dalton Gardens and the rural areas around Wolf Creek had their power restored by 4:30 p.m. Monday.

Likewise, despite intermittent outages most of Sunday afternoon and evening that left just under 1,000 Kootenai Electric customers without power, the co-op had resolved almost all of its outages. Only a handful of residents along the western stretch of Lake Coeur d’Alene were still without power as of Monday afternoon.

Hagadone News Network reporter Craig Northrup contributed to this report.

photo

Courtesy KRISTIN REGIER

Kristin Regier says she narrowly missed a falling tree while delivering pizza in Dover.

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