Cox Trying To Get With Picture
Two weeks after the ice storm, thousands of people in Spokane have power but lousy TV reception.
Some 5,000 Cox Cable customers are still unplugged, the company reported Monday.
“We’re repairing downed lines feverishly,” said Cox General Manager Alan Collins. “We anticipate cleaning those up and getting service back up to everybody by the end of the weekend.”
Collins said the hardest-hit areas are neighborhoods around Newman Lake, Waikiki in far north Spokane, Ponderosa in the Valley, and parts of the South Hill.
But folks without cable TV won’t get much sympathy from those still living without power.
In the Inland Northwest, more than 1,500 homes remain in the dark, utility officials said Monday. When the ice storm hit the region Nov. 19, about 100,000 homes and businesses were blacked out.
Line crews are working on power outages caused by wet, heavy snow in Stevens and Pend Oreille counties.
New snow on Monday caused more lines to collapse in the Colville and Chewelah areas.
Farther north, Pend Oreille County residents who lost power in a storm last Wednesday were still powerless. County officials said power may not be restored for several more days.
Utility workers, meanwhile, were keeping a wary eye on the weather Monday as a new storm brought more snow.
“If it’s light, powdery stuff, that won’t hurt too much,” said Mark Cauchy, spokesman for the Pend Oreille County Public Utility District.
He said the damage was done by 12 to 18 inches of “extremely heavy” snow last Wednesday.
“It took down many miles of lines,” Cauchy said. “We had 40 or 50 trees in some stretches of line.” In many cases, the damage was so bad that long sections of lines have to be replaced instead of patched.
Initially, 2,000 to 3,000 of the district’s 7,500 customers lost power. Most were between the Spokane County line and Cusick, in central Pend Oreille County.
Those who remain without electricity are scattered, but Cauchy said many of them are in the Deer Valley, Fertile Valley and LeClerc Creek Road areas.
Cauchy said repair crews have been plagued by secondary failures as overloads blow fuses when power is restored. He urged residents to turn off their heaters until power has been restored for a few minutes.
Richard Heitman, general manager of Inland Power and Light Co., said 300 to 400 customers remain without power in the Newman Lake area.
“Hopefully, we can get half those people power today and the other half on Wednesday,” Heitman said. “But that will depend on the weather.”
In parts of North Idaho, the weather hasn’t cooperated. It could be weeks - maybe months in some remote areas - before power is restored.
“We got some pictures back from Priest Lake and I am amazed at the damage,” said Elissa Glassman of Northern Lights, a power company based in Sandpoint.
“We are doing everything we can to restore power, but in many areas at Priest Lake the system will have to be rebuilt.”
Northern Lights serves about 12,000 customers in Bonner and Boundary counties and parts of Montana. The company still had more than 1,000 residents without power late Monday.
More than 40 inches of snow that fell during the last two weeks felled trees, sending them toppling into power lines and poles. Priest Lake was the hardest hit; hundreds of trees came down.
As for phone service, U S West Communications estimates 2,500 customers in the region are still without service due to the ice storm.
U S West hopes to have service restored to all customers this weekend.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Kevin Blocker Staff writer Staff writers John Craig and Kevin Keating contributed to this report.