More than 1,500 still without power in region

More than 1,500 utility customers in Eastern Washington and North Idaho remained without service Sunday evening.

Inland Power & Light said 1,550 were waiting for electricity to be restored as of 8 p.m. About 980 of those were in Spokane County and 550 were in Stevens County.

Kootenai Electric Cooperative had 57 customers still in the dark Sunday evening, and Avista said it was working to restore service to 27 customers in Spokane County and 19 in Kootenai County.

The outages were caused by heavy snowfall last week that built up on lines and nearby trees. In many cases, limbs snapped and trees toppled, knocking power lines down.

Inland Power was estimating it would restore service to most of its remaining customers Sunday night, with some smaller outages continuing into Monday and Tuesday.

The utility is using helicopters to blow snow off its lines and nearby trees. It also brought eight more contract crews Sunday morning, for a total of 16 crews.