Fewer than 300 households still without power after windstorm in the Inland Northwest

Fewer than 300 households remain without power in the Inland Northwest nearly a week after a windstorm toppled hundreds of trees and left one Spokane woman dead.

Shortly after the storm, more than 100,000 households in the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene area were without power.

Avista Utilities crews and support staff continued their power restoration efforts around the clock through Monday evening, according to a news release from the company. As of Monday morning, Avista had approximately 96% of customers’ power restored.

As Avista said it expected, the majority of customers in Spokane and Coeur d’Alene had their power restored as of Tuesday morning.

Fewer than 300 Avista customers remained without power as of 5 p.m. Tuesday, down from about 4,500 customers without power on Sunday evening. At its peak the day of the storm, Avista had 70,000 customers without power.

Most of the remaining outages were near Kellogg. There was one outage in Spokane Valley and one north of Country Homes, according to Avista.

Avista said crews waded through heavily forested and challenging terrain in Kootenai and Shoshone counties, navigating snow, downed trees, downed power poles, and debris across areas still without power. In order to restore power, Avista called in crews from all over the West Coast, coming from as far as Sacramento, California, according to a company news release.

Kootenai Electric Cooperative had about 15,000 customers without power at its peak. As of Tuesday evening, 15 customers were still without power.

Only six Inland Power customers in Spokane County were without power Tuesday evening. At its peak, Inland Power had more than 20,000 customers without power.

Northern Lights Inc. had restored power to all of its customers Tuesday.