KEC hit by a microburst Sunday

WORLEY - A sudden storm toppled 20 power poles late Sunday and knocked out electricity to about 600 members of Kootenai Electric Cooperative.

The "microburst," or tornado, struck between the Setters substation and U.S. 95 about 10 p.m.

KEC reported that every pole in a double circuit overhead line for 1.3 miles was shattered and on the ground.

Crews in the area preparing for a planned outage scheduled early Monday were not injured, and were able to help assess the situation.

At the height of the storm, about 600 KEC members were impacted by outages. Power to about half were restored by late Monday morning, and the remainder later in the day. Some temporary outage restoration measures were necessary, with permanent repairs will take place over the next several weeks.

KEC was also trying to restore power to about 100 members in the Cave Bay area late Monday.

KEC members were contacted by automatic phone message to alert them to the situation.