Windstorm toppled dozens of trees and left tens of thousands without power early Thursday; Lucky Friday miners rescued after power outage left them trapped

Power lines and trees were knocked down across the Inland Northwest as thousands lost power following an aggressive overnight windstorm.

Idaho’s Silver Valley is also expected to go without power throughout Thursday night.

Avista Utilities reported that nearly 61,000 customers had lost power across counties in Eastern Washington and North Idaho as winds buffeted the region with gusts reaching 68 mph in Spokane County, while Kootenai County winds hit 64 mph, according to the National Weather Service’s office on the West Plains.

“It’s about in-line with what we were expecting,” weather service meteorologist Steven Van Horn said.

Spokane city crews received about 70 tree reports and about a dozen trees were damaged on park properties, city spokesperson Erin Hut said. Crews will continue to work at clearing debris and replacing damaged street signs.

At the Lucky Friday Mine in Mullan, Idaho, dozens of miners were rescued Thursday after the strong winds Wednesday night knocked out power serving the deep silver mine, according to reports for KHQ television.

No one was injured and the mine has safety systems in place to protect miners during such occurrences, a spokesman for mine owner Hecla Limited told KHQ.

David Reif, his family and dogs were forced to sleep in a hotel after a tree fell on their South Hill home at 23rd Avenue and Browne Street.

“At one point the tree cracked down and it was loud enough to wake the whole family up and the dogs were freaking out,” Reif said. “I came out and took a look and saw the tree was leaning on the house.”

Kootenai County firefighter Scott Oliver was out all night responding to wind-related calls when he received a call from his wife, Kate. She heard a loud sound around midnight, and then a tree crashed through the couple’s house and into the basement. She described it as a “torpedo” due to the angle the tree fell. Her husband was able to come by the house between calls to check on her. There was not much he was able to do until they could assess the damage in the morning.

“Didn’t think I’d have to do this on my own house,” Scott Oliver said.

While eating the first food she’d had in the day at around 1 p.m., Kate Oliver said she has not slept since the tree fell. She is sticking to the positives.

“The inside of my house smells like a forest right now,” she said. “It smells wonderful.”

Scott Oliver is a part of the Kootenai County Fire and Rescue station, which has 21 firefighters active every day. Fire Chief Pete Holley said that he was with Oliver when he got his wife’s call early Thursday morning. Oliver’s running home to ensure his family was safe before returning to his duties illustrates how the crew makes time for family, despite their work demands.

“It’s something that speaks to what they’re made of,” he said.

Holley said that his crew was still navigating storm related calls at 3 p.m. Thursday. Many worked nonstop from 8 p.m. Wednesday to after 3 a.m. Thursday.

“There wasn’t a time last night when there weren’t crews going somewhere and doing something.”

Nearly 30% of Inland Power customers, about 4,000, saw their power go out in Lincoln County, the company’s outage map shows. Inland Power also shows about 7% of customers lost power in Spokane County and nearly all of their customers in Kootenai County.

Kootenai Electric Cooperative reported 8,500 customers without power about 7:30 a.m. Northern Lights Inc. reported 14,400 customers out about 8:15 a.m. Pend Oreille County Public Utility District reported 300 outages around 8 a.m.

All were weather and wind related, the map shows. Utility crews were out overnight and early Thursday morning to assess the damage and begin to repair lines that had fallen. They also were removing trees off power lines, according to Inland Power’s website.

A casualty of the lost power was much of the refrigerated and frozen food at Super 1 Foods on 29th Avenue near Grand Boulevard. Grocery workers were restocking produce, dairy, meat, deli and frozen food sections Thursday evening after they had to be nearly emptied after the store was without power most of the day. Much of the food had to be thrown out, including shopping carts filled with cartons of ice cream.

The National Weather Service issued an Avalanche Warning for much of the mountainous portions of the Idaho Panhandle, including Wallace, Kellogg and Lookout Pass along Interstate 90, as well as most areas north of the Clark Fork and Pend Oreille rivers.

Spokane Community College and Spokane Falls Community College canceled classes as a result of the storm.

Documentation of downed trees and power lines were posted across social media Wednesday night with some lines starting to fall after 11 p.m. The Spokane Fire Department received around 40 calls related to downed power lines overnight, department spokesperson Justin de Ruyter said. The Spokane Police Department estimated a total of 75 weather-related calls, including fire calls, according to department spokesperson Tricia Leming.

North Spokane, the South Hill, Mead and Spokane Valley were all reporting downed trees, Van Horn said.

Spokane Valley had 25 trees down over local roads and by 2 p.m. on Thursday, all but two of those trees had been cleared, according to city public information officer Jill Smith.

A car and camper in Spokane Valley were also crushed by a tree overnight, KHQ reported. Nobody was injured.

Avista urges people to stay away from downed power lines and to refrain from removing tree limbs from downed or sagging power lines.

Colin Mulvany, Emily White and Cannon Barnett contributed to this report.