More Dark Days Ahead Some Rural Idaho Residents Won’t Have Power For Weeks

Having trouble giving thanks with an ice-cold stove and a takeout bird?

Some people in rural Idaho are powerless not just on today’s holiday, but will remain in the dark for weeks.

Around the east side of Hayden Lake, Wednesday’s weather didn’t brighten any dim spirits.

“We might not have lights at Christmas, either,” a wool-clad Max Palmer said, sawing at a fallen tree blocking a roadway. He’ll spend today waiting for his turkey to broil over a wood stove.

Before the new storm, Kootenai Electric Cooperative announced it may take three weeks to get some 1,200 people powered up again. Some could be unplugged for only two, depending on the weather.

On Wednesday, the situation looked pretty bad. The utility wasn’t making any promises - and 3,500 homes were now dark.

“We’ve lost the work we did yesterday, plus new outages,” Kootenai Electric spokeswoman Catherine Parochetti said.

Trees leaned, threatening the narrow straits of Hayden Lake Road. The sagging giants shrugged off jagged, icy loads in loud crashes. Other treetops snapped off, renting the air like shotgun blasts.

The remote area still looked like last week’s ice storm had just hit. Power lines were either downed or they drooped, made baseball-batfat by sheaths of ice.

Richard Neamy’s power has turned off and on for a week. Fortunately, he has a generator. “But some people, they’ve left,” Neamy said, as a neighbor shoveled snow from his roof.

Kristy Vineyard wasn’t leaving. Instead, she and her family have learned first-hand what frontier life was like. Her daylight hours are spent gathering wood for heat and melting snow so the toilet can flush.

Every couple of days, they head out to Hayden for a shower and to buy bottled water. Seven people live in the house now: herself, her in-laws, her husband and three young children. “Our 2-year-old has chronic lung problems,” Vineyard said.

Today’s dinner will be cooked on a propane stove in a travel trailer. But she’s making the best of it. “We’re lucky,” Vineyard said.

“We camp a lot, and are better prepared than a lot of city folks who moved here for the view. Them, I feel sorry for.”

Many of them, though, are gone.

Weather prospects still looked grim this week. Hayden Lake’s sky was a sickly pale ribbon sandwiched between still, metallic water and a dirty-gray ceiling of clouds.

And despite her spirit of thanksgiving, Vineyard is worried. She’s steamed that no one has connected her family’s power yet. She hasn’t seen repair trucks, she said, and utility employees “haven’t had much sympathy” when she calls.

Back at the woody road block, Palmer’s pickup was filled with shovels and saws. The bundled logger chalked repair problems up to Mother Nature. “They’re working on it,” he said of power line repair teams.

“But it keeps knockin’ ‘em down as soon as they fix ‘em.”

He and friend Ron Duplessis remove all of the felled trees they find. There are plenty. One neighbor said he finds new barriers blocking his steep driveway each day.

“I can do it,” Palmer said of his chain-saw help.

“And it needs done.” Neighbors passing in 4-by-4 trucks waved at the two. So did the snowplow operator and the tow truck driver.

“We’re all out of power,” Vineyard said. “What else can we do?”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo