Tens of thousands of Inland Northwest residents remain without power this morning following Saturday’s high winds and thunderstorms across the region.
Avista said its crews are working to restore service to about 34,000 customers this morning. At the height of the outage, more than 48,000 Avista customers were without power.
Transmission and distribution lines primarily were damaged in the storm, according to the utility’s preliminary estimates. Most damage appears to be from large tree branches that hit power lines, Avista said.
Especially hard-hit were areas in north-central Spokane, Deer Park, Colbert and Colville, as well as Sandpoint and Priest River in Idaho. More than 14,Oakley Sunglasses Outlet,000 customers are still without power in the Sandpoint area.
Residents in the Five Mile were asked to conserve water today after the storm knocked out power to the area s water booster station. The Spokane Water Department said residents there should turn off all lawn irrigation and limit water use to drinking and cooking needs.
Crews have installed a generator at the booster station but it’s not powerful enough to run all of the pumps,Oakley Tactical Gloves, the city said this morning. The water department is working with Avista Utilities to try to restore full power to the pump station as soon as possible.
Downed power lines sparked three wildfires north of Spokane, the largest of them growing to about 45 acres along Jim Hill Road in Chattaroy. Two smaller fires broke out along North Madison Road southwest of Mount Spokane.
Fire crews were on all three fires through the night and had them contained this morning, said Randy Johnson,Oakley Sunglasses Outlet, chief of Spokane County Fire District 4.
Some homeowners near the Jim Hill fire were evacuated Saturday evening, but no structures were damaged and no injuries reported on any of the three fires, Johnson said.
Firefighters will remain on the scenes to mop up the fires today, he added.
In North Idaho, the Idaho Transportation Department was working to remove downed trees from roadways. A lot of debris was left in emergency lanes and on the shoulders of U.S. Highway 95 and other roadways, the Idaho State Police said.
Avista crews from areas not affected by the storm along with contract and mutual aide crews from Boise, Moses Lake and areas in Eastern Washington are relocating to assist local crews.
Customers can view outage status on Avista’s website at www.avistautilities.com. They also can report outages online and through their mobile device or by calling (800) 227-9187.