Exceeding expectations: Winds knock out power to thousands in the West Plains
Cities still effecting repairs almost one week after powerful storm blows through
Last updated 1/21/2021 at 11:52am
WEST PLAINS - National Weather Service forecasters warned last week that a strong cold front scheduled to pass through Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho beginning late Tuesday night and through Wednesday could bring strong winds, heavy rain and snow in the mountains - with winds potentially gusting into the 40 – 55 miles per hour range.
They were a bit off as winds well exceeding those forecasted knocked down power lines, poles and trees leading to power disruptions to thousands and at least one death in the region on Jan. 13. Crews were continuing to make repairs in many areas as late as Tuesday, Jan. 19, with some customers without power through last weekend.
While tracking average wind speeds at 28.1 mph, the National Weather Service station at Spokane International Airport also recorded high wind speeds of 53 mph and a wind gust at 71 mph. At the station in Spokane Valley at Felts Field, average wind speed was 15.1 mph, with high wind speeds topping 43 mph and a wind gust at 58 mph.
By 9:30 a.m. Wednesday morning Avista Utilities was reporting 67,677 electric customers without power throughout their service area. According to their outage map about 25 minutes later, Inland Power and Light was reporting 15,801 of 43,061 customers - 36.7% - without power in their six county service area, including 13,191 of 29,925 customers in Spokane County.
Many of those outages were in specific areas. At one point in time Wednesday morning, Inland reported 1,128 customers without power in Airway Heights, 1,257 customers around Hallett, Grove and Thomas Mallen roads in the West Terrace, 390 customers in the area of Jensen and Anderson roads and later in the afternoon another 690 customers without power in the area of south Cheney.
Avista maps were showing afternoon outages of 289 customers east of Medical Lake in the Silver Lake area and 575 customers in a rough triangular region stretching from Four Lakes to Marshall, Geiger Heights and into the southwest portion of Spokane's South Hill.
Inland highest number of customers without power eventually reached a total of 38.2$, 16,446 with 13,647 -45.2 % - of Spokane County customers in the dark. Among those were 2,300 in the Hallett, Grove and Thomas Mallon area that included Cheney School District's Snowdon and Windsor elementary schools and Westwood Middle School - all affected when a main three-phase power line went down, taking with it several poles and being covered with downed trees.
In Cheney, outages began with 150 customers affected early in the storm in the North 4th and North 5th streets area, with several downed trees in power lines reported at 3:45 a.m. At 1.35 p.m., the entire city went dark when an Avista power distribution line went down, cutting out power to both substations at Cheney-Plaza and Jensen roads.
Power was eventually restored to the city around 3 p.m. when Avista was able to make repairs, but Light Department crews were kept busy the rest of the day addressing specific areas of outages.
"The Light crew worked until 2:30 a.m. Thursday, clearing trees and branches from lines and restoring individual houses with power," Light Department Director Steve Marx wrote in an email.
Crews from all utilities continued effecting repairs through the rest of the week and through the weekend. The three-phase line knocked down in the West Terrace area was eventually fixed and power restored by late Thursday afternoon, allowing Cheney schools to reopen Friday.
Cheney lost a number of trees in city parks, including Sutton which also experienced damage to its playground equipment. In Medical Lake, City Administrator Doug Ross said they lost 13 trees due to the wind in Waterfront Park - one of which caused damage to the walking trail when its root ball took out a small section. Two more trees fell at the library, damaging the driveway but missing the building.
"There were multiple trees power lines and trees down on City streets resulting in duty calls for both police and fire," Ross said. "The trail may take care of itself when we push the root ball back in place, otherwise we will do some paving when the asphalt plants open up."
Officials in cities throughout the West Plains were still assessing damage as of press time Tuesday, Jan. 19.
John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.
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