THAR SHE BLOWS!

Winds up to an estimated 50 mph knocked out power to about 50,000 homes and businesses in North Idaho and eastern Washington on Monday.

Gusts toppled trees, caused dust storms, ripped down signs and forced boats off lakes.

One massive pine that went down at 18th and Front damaged the fence, carport and an SUV, but narrowly missed the home.

Another tree hit a home in Hayden and took out a section of the roof.

Hayden Lake Country Club sustained damage from a fallen tree as well.

Through it all, there were no reports of injuries.

Besides the wind, major wildfires were burning in eastern Washington, and smaller ones near Blanchard, Heyburn State Park and in Bonner County.

Several highways were closed due to low visibility from smoke and dust, including Interstate 90 in both directions west of Ritzville.

Erika Neff of Kootenai Electric Cooperative said strong winds in the area caused widespread power outages affecting more than 10,000 members.

Inland Power reported that about 7,000 customers in Spokane, Kootenai, Bonner, Stevens and Lincoln were without power.


Neff said the hardest hit areas included Athol, Spirit Lake, Twin Lakes, Garwood, Bayview and south of Coeur d’Alene and along the east side of Lake Coeur d’Alene.  

Power was knocked out at Silverwood Theme Park, which closed for the day and forced hundreds to leave.

The outages started about 8:30 a.m.

"All KEC crews are working to restore power and we have called in contract crews to help as well,” Neff wrote. “Due to extreme fire danger and windy conditions KEC crews must patrol all lines in areas experiencing outages before energizing power lines.“

Crews were expected to work through the night.

Avista was still assessing the damage Monday evening and wasn’t certain when power would be restored.

Outages were still occurring into the afternoon and strong gusts were still sweeping across the region.

“With assessments ongoing and widespread damage anticipated, customers should be prepared for a prolonged outage of 1-2 days and seek personal resources as needed,” a press release said.

The release said Avista’s system is currently operating “under dry land mode, which is an approach that helps decrease the potential for wildfires and requires our teams to physically patrol certain rural and forested areas before the lines can be re-energized.”