Mudslide Closes Road, Knocks Out Power

Sat., Oct. 17, 1998

From Staff

Residents here were left without electricity Friday night after a mudslide closed U.S. 395 north of town and damaged power lines, a Boundary County sheriff’s dispatcher said.

No injuries were reported in the slide, which heavily damaged a section of the highway’s northbound lane on a hillside about a mile north of town, the dispatcher said. Lanes in both directions were closed.

The slide also sent debris over a rail line next to the highway, said Bob Zach, an Idaho Department of Transportation spokesman.

The highway is not expected to be reopened for another two days, Zach said. He did not know when the rail line would be reopened.

There was no estimate when power would be fully restored in the town of 2,200.

During the highway closure, a detour route will be in effect, Zach said.

Just north of the slide area, motorists can take U.S. 2 east into northwestern Montana and continue south to Troy. The detour route heads south out of Troy on Montana 56, then northwest and back into Idaho on Montana 200, which connects with Sandpoint, 36 miles south of Bonners Ferry.

Traveling between those cities on the detour route is a 112-mile trip.

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