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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Transmitter Knocked Out By Snowfall Boundary County Services Lose Radio In Storm

The downed power line threatened to become the official symbol of Idaho’s two northernmost counties Thursday, leaving law enforcement, fire and ambulance without working radios in Boundary County.

“Everything is coming down - trees are coming down, power lines are coming down, power poles are coming down,” said Bob Graham, emergency coordinator in Boundary County. Power to radio transmitters was cut off as trees and heavy snow pummeled electrical lines late Wednesday night.

Border Patrol, customs, ambulance and all but one fire department were incommunicado. The sheriff’s department was relying on a State Department of Lands backup radio system.

A weary Graham, up since 4 a.m., was wrangling a snowcat from GTE in Coeur d’Alene to haul a propane generator to one of the transmitters. It was slow going.

“It’s Thanksgiving, so getting people rounded up to do things is very difficult,” Graham said.

Everyone is exhausted. There’s no place to put snow.

“Since a week ago last Saturday, we’ve had well over 5 feet of snow,” Graham said. “We’ve always had storms before but never this bad.”

Telephone lines in the sheriff’s department were ringing non-stop from people who are worried and wanting power. “Some of these people are calling with medical problems - nothing really serious yet - and we don’t have the capacity to get to them,” Graham said. A women with rheumatoid arthritis and her blind husband were among the lucky exceptions. They were moved to a motel after several days without power.

Sandpoint was seeing rain on top of its piles of snow. Residential streets were a mire. An ambulance got stuck going after a man with convulsions and another ambulance had to be dispatched to handle the call.

Like Boundary County, most of Bonner County had no power.

A reprieve in the weather was easing life elsewhere in the Panhandle. Washington Water Power and Kootenai Electric Cooperative crews made substantial progress by doing what has become routine: working around the clock.

By early Thursday, WWP trimmed its powerless numbers from 4,000 to 2,500. Kootenai Electric went from 3,500 to several hundred. It wasn’t easy going. WWP crews cut their way through downed trees to get to Twin Lakes only to have to beat a retreat because of the depth of the slush.

The thaw is on in Coeur d’Alene, but many residential streets are impassable because of deep slush.

Street crews will start cleaning it out as soon as possible but it won’t be fast, Coeur d’Alene City Manager Ken Thompson said Wednesday. It takes about 54 hours to plow the entire city under normal conditions.

In the last week and a half, crews have had to pull back several times and focus on reclearing emergency routes. That, combined with polar ice cap conditions created by last week’s freezing rain, have left Lake City residents axle deep in slick, slushy, rutted roads.

The good news is that volunteer crews are supposed to turn to the parks and cemetery today and Saturday to start cleaning up the debris from trees nuked by ice, snow, rain and more ice, snow and rain.

Shoshone County was reporting rain in the lower areas and snow where it’s skiable. Benewah County residents were reporting no problems.

The ski areas were swimming in snow. While heavy and wet in some places, none of the North Idaho resorts were hit with rain.

Lookout Pass Ski Area reported more than 14 inches of new snow. Schweitzer was getting light flurries dusting its heavy, wet, machine-groomed slopes.

Silver Mountain has 12 inches of new powder and more coming down.

For city folk, North Idaho skies will dry up until Saturday night or Sunday. Then it’s rain or snow, said Lyle Hammer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Temperatures will go as low as the mid-20s at night and not top more than 34 degrees during the day.

Fog is likely to add to the winter mosaic.

, DataTimes