Power still being restored after Monday storm

Electric utilities in the region continued to mop up damage from Monday’s windstorm as hundreds of power customers waited for their lights to come back on. Avista Utilities reported this morning that 300 customers were still without power, down from a peak of nearly 18,000 during the height of the storm Monday afternoon. The largest outages reported this morning were in the Colville area and the south side of Lewiston, locations that were hit hard on Monday. Kootenai Electric Cooperative reported that 50 of its members were still without power at 10:15 a.m. in Twin Lakes, Hayden, Athol and Harrison in North Idaho. Power was expected to be restored this morning to those locations. Inland Power and Light Co. had 17 customers without power this morning. All were individual service lines taken out by storm damage, including a barn roof that blew off in one outage and a broken power pole in another, said spokeswoman Catherine Cronin. Inland had 4,200 customers without power at the peak of Monday’s storm and brought in contract crews to help with repairs. Winds at mid-afternoon Monday gusted to 59 mph at Spokane International Airport and 60 mph in Coeur d’Alene. There were several reports of wind gusts exceeding 60 mph in the Lewiston region, including Asotin County in neighboring Washington.