Electricity restored to most customers as crews work to prevent future outages

IDAHO FALLS — Electricity has been restored to most Rocky Mountain Power customers who were in the dark for several hours Monday morning.

At one point, over 12,000 customers in Bonneville, Fremont, Jefferson, Madison and Teton Counties were experiencing outages due to severe weather. High, gusting winds combined with heavy ice loads on electrical lines caused power at a substation to go down Sunday morning and early Monday morning.

As power was rerouted, officials say subsequent outages at Rocky Mountain Power’s Sugarmill Substation resulted in Idaho Falls Power crews having to manually reconfigure power to other lines so service could be restored.

Crews worked throughout the day to make repairs and less than 400 Rocky Mountain customers were experiencing outages as of 6:30 p.m. Monday.

Both Rocky Mountain Power and the Bonneville Power Administration own infrastructure involved in the outages. Idaho Falls Power is working with both agencies to troubleshoot what caused the disruption.

“We’re always trying to be proactive and look for ways to prevent and minimize the impacts of outages as much as we can,” Bear Prairie, IFP General Manager, said in a news release. “We’re working closely with RMP and BPA to make sure we can identify things that worked and didn’t work and to be as prepared as possible for weather events in the future. Freezing rain and high winds are a bad combination for an electric grid.”