Avista acts quick to address late night outages

Things got a little chilly on Tuesday night for more than 3,500 Avista customers on the east end of Shoshone County.

It was right around 9 p.m. on Tuesday when suddenly everything went dark for more than a quarter of the county’s population — most of the power was restored by 11:30 p.m.

The outage spanned everywhere east of where Osburn’s Yellowstone Avenue turns into Mullan Avenue, and throughout the communities of Silverton, Wallace, Burke Canyon and Mullan.

According to representatives from Avista, the outage wasn’t the result of a single issue, but of six different incidents in the Wallace, Mullan and Osburn areas.

Another outage was reported on the western end of Mullan on Wednesday afternoon — as to the specifics of the outages, both were reportedly caused by weather.

“Winter weather, snow in the area, caused trees, tree limbs, and debris to come into contact with transmission infrastructure in the area resulting in a disruption of service for Avista customers,” David Vowels, a Communications Manager with Avista said.

With power grids down, many people were unable to access any sort of internet connection which in turn led to cell phone towers being overloaded as people searched frantically for any sort of way to figure out how long they may be without power — and subsequently, heat.

Avista’s website has a list of things that folks should and should not do during an outage. The do’s include:

• Turn off all the appliances you think were on before the power went out

• Unplug your electronic equipment, including computers.

• Leave a porch light on so you, and Avista service people, can tell when you have power again.

• Keep your refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible to prevent food spoilage. Food should stay frozen for about one full day and fresh in the refrigerator for about four hours.

• Lower the thermostat on all your electric heat sources to an absolute minimum.

• Wait a half-hour after power comes back on to return your thermostat to a normal setting.

• Use flashlights.

The don'ts:

• Use candles. They're fire hazards.

• Heat your home with an outdoor grill or other items not intended for indoor use. They can create deadly fumes indoors.

• Wire an emergency generator into your home electrical system. Backfeed into power lines could injure or kill a lineman working to get electricity restored.

• Go near downed power lines. Stay away. Treat all power lines as live.

A full list of power outage preparedness can be found at www.myavista.com/outages.

To report an outage in your area please visit the same website.