27 power poles knocked down in early morning windstorm leaves customers in the dark
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SHELLEY – Dozens of homes and businesses are without power Wednesday morning following a power outage in the Shelley area.
Rocky Mountain Power spokesman Jona Whitesides tells EastIdahoNews.com 27 power poles were knocked down around 1 a.m. due to strong winds, impacting about 1,500 customers.
RELATED | High wind watch in effect for eastern Idaho Tuesday night, Wednesday morning
The National Weather Service in Pocatello issued a high wind watch Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Meteorologist John Keyes says the reported wind speed at the Idaho Falls Regional Airport at the time of the outage was 74 mph.
Power has been restored for the majority of customers, as of 10:15 a.m. Whitesides says there are 27 customers still in the dark.
He doesn’t know for sure when power will be restored, but the company is contacting customers to determine any immediate needs.
“We’re trying to lend generators to those who may need them,” says Whitesides. “We’ll evaluate on a case-by-case basis.”
Among those impacted by the storm is Melaleuca at 4609 West 65th South. Company president Cole Clinger says the global headquarters, along with the distribution center and powder production facility are running on generator power. Between 600 and 700 employees are working from home Wednesday as a result.
Clinger’s been told power will tentatively be restored sometime Thursday. Meanwhile, Rocky Mountain Power is working to provide a larger generator for the distribution center.
“Rocky Mountain Power has been awesome to work with,” Clinger says. “They’ve still got a lot to figure out before they can give us a definitive answer (about restoring power).”
Whitesides says multiple factors have an impact on how quickly power is restored and it could be as long as a day or two before power is back online.
“There are certain areas where you can’t reroute the power based upon how the original infrastructure was built,” Whitesides says. “It’s going to have to be (repaired) one-by-one. With power poles being blown over, it depends on what we have in inventory, how fast can we get it out there and (current weather conditions). So that’s all the factors we have to (consider) to get the power up and going again.”
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