A downed tree and power line along Morrell Creek Drive. Many residents took to the road with "gloves and chainsaws," according to a Facebook post, to help clear the road.
A wind storm with gusts up to 60-70 miles per hour burst through Seeley Lake on Aug. 23 and left thousands without power, some going days before the lights came back on.
The storm postponed the beginning of Seeley-Swan High School's school year. Freshmen were to have started school on Monday, and as of press time Monday afternoon, it wasn't clear when classes would begin either for the high school or the elementary school.
A couple of log storage sheds at Pyramid Mountain Lumber were damaged and a wooden sign bearing the names of Seeley Lake residents was destroyed along with various trees downed.
Alex Lukinbeal, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Missoula, said the weather station site in Seeley Lake is in more of a sheltered spot east of town near the ranger district and only reported gusts up to 40 mph, but he felt confident based on the damage done and observations in the area that wind speeds were more likely in the 60 to 70 mph range. Top speeds in Missoula hit 67 mph.
Lukinbeal said the storm that ran through the Seeley-Swan Valley is what meteorologists refer to as a microburst and was part of a "long-lived" cluster of thunderstorms that started in southwestern Montana and moved north.
At the base of the clouds that made up the thunderstorm was a warm and dry layer that rain fell through. As that layer cooled with the precipitation, winds accelerated as they dropped down from the clouds, Lukinbeal said.
This most recent storm was part of a different low-pressure system than the one that created the first big wind storm that blew through Missoula at the end of July.
According to Kelsey Lodge, communications director with the Missoula Electric Cooperative, about 4,400 MEC customers in the Seeley-Swan area were without power as of 8 p.m. the night of the storm. By Sunday at 8:30 a.m., that number dropped to 1,400 in Seeley Lake and Condon and one customer in Missoula.
Before press on Monday afternoon, MEC's outage map reported 167 customers without power in its district containing Seeley Lake and Condon and 131 in the district including Ovando and Helmville.
Lodge said MEC had 11 power poles down and crews also faced downed wire and debris to work through while making repairs.
Power was restored to the majority of Seeley Lake, Double Arrow Lodge residents and Condon by Sunday evening. That night Lodge said members still without power would likely be waiting for a pole replacement and those were expected to be completed by Monday.
On Monday, four crews were working on 11 broken poles located in Placid Lake, Salmon Lake/Emerald Lake, Boy Scout Road, Morrell Creek - which had two down poles and was hit by the storm particularly hard - Greyling Drive, Pine Drive, Rainbow Court, Condon Loop Road, Condon and Mill Creek/Frenchtown, Lodge said.
"We sincerely appreciate your patience and understanding as we work to recover from our second devastating weather event in less than a month," Lodge said. "Thank you to the crews in the field and everyone behind the scenes that supports their efforts. We couldn't do it without your dedication."
Five people with Missoula County Public Works have been picking up debris and clearing roadways and right of ways within Seeley Lake with the goal of making roads maneuverable for emergency services. The group will move to Condon at some point, though Joe Miller, assistant road supervisor in Seeley Lake with Missoula County Public Works, said there wasn't nearly the wind in Condon that Seeley experienced.
Miller said there isn't a designated drop site for people to bring their debris.
He thanked those volunteers who set to work clearing various areas, like Morrell Creek Road. Miller said his team worked on that road for six hours on Monday morning, using two dump trucks and a five person team to haul as much as they could as quickly as possible.
There were no road closures that Miller was aware of as of Monday afternoon. Everything was opened up Friday evening fairly quickly after the storm.
This story was updated on Aug. 29 at 10:55 a.m. to correct the date of the storm. It was Aug. 23, not Aug. 30.
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