Wind whips through valley, topple trees and power lines

With winds gusts reaching nearly 50 miles per hour around the area Wednesday, Jan. 13, downed trees caused widespread power outages, blocked roads and damaged property. While emergency personnel responded to several calls throughout the day, Missoula Electric Cooperative (MEC) crews worked into the weekend restoring power and community members helped neighbors cut out roads, driveways and remove trees from buildings and vehicles.

The Seeley Lake Remote Automatic Weather Station (RAWS) located at the Seeley Lake Airport reported gusts hitting 43 mph by 1 p.m. and staying above 25 mph until 7 p.m. The RAWS located at the Condon Work Station recorded gusts above 40 mph between 8-9 a.m. peaking at 48 mph at 2 p.m. Gusts were recorded up to 63 mph at the Clearwater Junction RAWS. A National Weather Service sensor recorded gusts of 125 mph on Mount Sentinel in Missoula.

The Weather Channel reported 55,000 outages in Idaho and about 33,000 in Montana as the storm moved east.

Thursday morning MEC reported more than 34% of customers in the Seeley Lake and Swan Valley District 5 and more than 10% in District 6, including Potomac and Ovando, were without power.

"To members who are still awaiting restoration, we thank you for your continued patience. Please rest assured, our crews are working as safely and quickly as possible, to restore power across our service area.

Though our crews worked late into the night, we still have widespread outages and a busy week ahead," wrote MEC on their Facebook page.

MEC brought in help from crews at Rocky Mountain Contractors, Ravalli Electric Cooperative and Vigilante Electric Cooperative. Six crews were dispatched to Seeley Lake and surrounding areas to clear right-of-way, replace broken poles and repair downed lines. There was also a crew on sight in the upper Double Arrow Ranch.

While MEC reported on their Facebook page that power was restored to Potomac by 11 a.m., a new power outage was reported at 8 p.m. Power was restored again in Potomac by 12 a.m. Friday.

Friday morning, MEC had power restored to all but 18.5% of the customers in District 5 and nearly 3% in District 6. By Friday night power was restored to all of Seeley Lake.

MEC brought in extra crews Friday night to help restore power to Condon.

Along with volunteer emergency responders and law enforcement cutting trees out of the roads, many community members fired up their chainsaws to help. Anne Dahl of Condon shared the story of her neighbors coming to help her.

"Todd McNutt risked his life to saw out a fallen spruce blocking my driveway while missiles of debris and branches were blasting through the air during the Jan. 13 windstorm," wrote Dahl in an email. "This was after a tree crushed the bed of his new pickup when he was cutting downed trees on Styler Road so neighbors could get out."

Another one of Dahl's neighbors, Jim Webb brought her a generator to borrow on the second day of the outage.

"When he arrived I was reading the manual that came with my new, but never used, generator and figuring out how to run the beast," Dahl wrote. "Jim helped me get it running properly and told me to text him if I needed more help. It's nice to have such capable and kind neighbors willing to assist without being asked."

MEC reported Sunday morning at 8:30 a.m. that while there is still a tremendous amount of damage, and right-of-way that requires trees to be removed, all power was restored, with the exception of a few meters on Kauffman Road in Condon. Crews were able to wrap up the windstorm outages by Sunday night.

For helpful power outage tips visit http://bit.ly/MECOutageInfo.