Winds as high as 50 mph put out lights in region

High winds spread power outages across the Inland Northwest early Wednesday, forcing a school in Spokane Valley to bus its students to another building and cutting off the lights for more than 12,000 customers of two electric companies.

Winds in some areas topped 50 mph in the early morning, according to the National Weather Service.

The damage to power lines caused outages for about 11,000 Avista customers across Spokane County and North Idaho, said company spokeswoman Debbie Simock. About 8,000 of those had electricity restored by 10:30 a.m., and the number without power dropped to about 300 by late afternoon.

An outage at West Valley’s City School forced the district to bus about 200 fifth- through eighth-graders to Centennial Middle School, said district spokeswoman Sue Shields.

“We’ll bus them back once we get the power back on and warm things up,” Shields said. “It’s a bit cold in there.”

In Deer Park, power was restored just before district officials had to make a decision on whether to cancel school.

“We were very fortunate in that the power was on at 6:10 a.m.,” said Superintendent Mick Miller.

If school had been canceled, students could have sneaked in a day of skiing at Schweitzer or Silver Mountain ski resorts. Both reopened Wednesday after shutting down Tuesday because of high wind gusts.

Kootenai County Sheriff’s Capt. Ben Wolfinger said the department received 18 weather-related calls in the early morning hours Wednesday, beginning after midnight.

Most of the calls were about downed trees and power lines, with no injuries reported and little damage.

About 1,100 members of the Kootenai Electric Cooperative in North Idaho also lost power early Wednesday, and officials said power in most places had been restored by 4 p.m.

Wind wasn’t the only source of inconvenience Wednesday as heavy rains caused delays on at least two roads.

Spokane Valley’s Chester Creek overflowed Wednesday, closing Thorpe Road along the south edge of the Painted Hills Golf Course between Dishman-Mica Road and Madison Road.

Up to three inches of water was running over the roadway, and Thorpe will be closed until crews determine it is safe, city spokeswoman Carolbelle Branch said in a statement.

State Route 27 north of Oakesdale also was closed from about 6 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. because of flooding at the Pine Creek bridge.