Utility crews have been up and at ’em Wednesday as high winds are expected to cause power outages and other issues throughout the day and have already lead to over 1,000 outages early on.
Inland Power & Light is reporting 1,270 customers without power Wednesday morning, including over 1,000 in Spokane County. Inland Power says an outage at their Greenbluff substation led to the outage, and power is expected to be restored around 9:40 a.m.
Northern Lights is currently reporting outages in North Idaho affecting around 600 customers. An outage in the Nordman area is affecting over 400 customers.
Avista Utilities & Kootenai Electric crews have responded to multiple outages Wednesday morning, restoring power quickly to hundreds of customers.
Avista has restored power to hundreds of customers already Wednesday,and says around 50 customers are currently without power in the Sandpoint and Hope areas. Avista has anticipated the most significant outages to be in that greater Sandpoint area.
Both Avista & Kootenai crews stated they were prepared for the windy forecast. Avista says crews are prepared to respond through the holiday if necessary. Kootenai says crews are on call 24 hours a day and ready to be dispatched throughout their service territory.
In the event of downed power lines, officials stress to stay away and assumed the downed lines are energized.
