UPDATE: Power fully restored in upper valley, cause still unknown
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REXBURG – Officials with Rocky Mountain Power are reporting power has been fully restored to customers impacted by an outage Friday night.
More than 17,000 customers across the upper valley were without power beginning at 8:15 p.m. Crews responded and were able to restore power to many households. At 11 p.m., there were still about 5,300 customers without power.
RELATED | Upper Valley power restoration estimated at 10:30 p.m., Hart building serving as shelter
Power was fully restored at 2:27 Saturday morning, according to company spokeswoman Tiffany Erickson. She tells EastIdahoNews.com a transmission line at the Rigby substation was down. The exact cause still has not been determined, but the reason the impact was so high is because the line that went down took out five substations.
Outages were reported from as far north as Ashton and south to Thornton and between Rexburg and Newdale.
Erickson says they encourage people to be prepared when outages occur.
“When there are outages, it’s always handy to have a preparedness kit — blankets, flashlights, water, cell phones and a way to charge them.”
Outages during the winter can be particularly dangerous if you’re not prepared, Erickson says. You can always report outages through their mobile app or website. You can also call or send a text to 1-877-508-5088.