Wind Creates Headaches Gusts Down Power Lines And Trees, Close Ski Hills

Gusty winds toppled power lines, knocked down trees and closed ski hills around North Idaho on Sunday.

The National Weather Service reported gusts around 50 mph in Coeur d’Alene on Sunday afternoon, and meteorologists issued a high wind warning until the evening.

Crews from Kootenai Electric Cooperative and Avista spent the day restoring power to thousands of homes.

“We’ve had a very busy day,” Avista spokeswoman Jennifer Mitchell said. “High winds are causing us lots of headaches.”

A couple thousand homes in Coeur d’Alene, Spirit Lake, Hayden Lake and Dalton Gardens were without power Sunday, Mitchell said. About 100 homes in Kellogg and Wallace were in the dark as well.

“We’ll have crews in the field until the power is restored,” Mitchell said.

Kootenai Electric Cooperative crews were working on fixing several outages, but did not have an estimate on how many homes were affected, spokeswoman Jane Baker said. The cooperative serves 16,000 customers, mostly in Kootenai County.

Trees blew down like Lincoln Logs around North Idaho, clogging roadways and landing on homes and cars. Police and street crews spent much of the day trying to keep up.

Reports of high winds closed Silver Mountain Ski Resort before it even opened for the day. Schweitzer Mountain Resort closed around 1 p.m. Sunday after reporting 60 mph gusts on top of the mountain, said Deanna Harris, one of the resort’s directors.

Such high winds typically hit the mountain once a season, Harris said.

Only Lookout Pass remained open Sunday for skiers.

A cold front passed through North Idaho during the day, strengthening the pressure difference across the area and creating a lot of wind, said Gary Bennett, a senior forecaster with the National Weather Service in Spokane. That cold snap combined with a strong jet stream hovering over Spokane and Coeur d’Alene provided the one-two punch that cooked up the wind, he said.

“It had enough power to create real strong gustiness,” he said. “You have to be really careful because trees do come over with this stuff.”