Days after an epic windstorm caused road closures and damage to numerous buildings in East Idaho, nearly 100 homes in the American Falls and Aberdeen areas were still without electricity.

Idaho Power reports that the windstorm took a heavy toll on its electrical grid in East Idaho, destroying transmission lines and knocking down over 150 power poles.

Still, the utility was able to restore electrical service to all of its residential customers by the end of the weekend, with the lights finally coming back on for those homes in the Aberdeen and American Falls areas by 1:53 p.m. Sunday, according to Idaho Power spokesperson Jordan Rodriguez.

“The crews have been working really hard,” Rodriguez told the Idaho State Journal on Monday afternoon. “They worked in super muddy, tough conditions, with some of the rain and things that have happened since the big wind event — but they got all the residential folks restored Sunday afternoon.”

While all homes had power restored by Sunday, Rodriguez said there were still a couple of irrigation pumps and other agricultural equipment without power that crews were continuing to work on.

Wednesday’s storm was a rare weather event that hit East Idaho with hurricane-strength winds. Gusts of up to 80 mph were recorded at the Idaho National Laboratory while 74 mph gusts hit Aberdeen.

In general, most of the region saw winds of 70 mph or greater. The central Idaho mountains saw even worse conditions with a 115 mph gust recorded on a peak northwest of Ketchum.

Rodriguez characterized it as “one of the worst wind events I think we’ve seen in the region in quite some time.”

The storm resulted in some injuries in East Idaho but miraculously no fatalities.

Tens of thousands of Idaho Power customers lost electrical service during the storm, but most had their power restored by Wednesday night.

The situation was far less ideal for Idaho Power customers in the American Falls and Aberdeen areas, hundreds of whom were still without electricity on Friday. The unusual delay in restoring power was due to the fact the destructive storm knocked down transmission lines as well as dozens of power poles in both areas.

“When you have that many poles damaged, kind of all at once, or all within a short time window, then it’s obviously pretty work intensive to get everything restored,” Rodriguez said.

Idaho Power crews from throughout the state were deployed to the Aberdeen and American Falls areas to replace the damaged poles and transmission lines.

As of Saturday, there were nearly 100 homes in the Aberdeen and American Falls areas still without electricity, but by the end of the weekend Idaho Power was happy to report that all of those residential customers had their power restored.

Idaho Power added that there is still some irrigation equipment on farms in both areas that is without power and the damage to transmission lines is still in the process of being repaired, but the hope is that in the next couple days all of those issues will be resolved and everything will be back to normal.

Idaho Power said it worked to restore everyone’s electricity as soon as possible but the amount of damage to its infrastructure caused by the storm in the Aberdeen and American Falls areas was unheard of from a historical perspective.

The utility had to bring in replacement power poles and other equipment from other parts of the country because the damage exhausted its own supply, Rodriguez said.

“The company is always really well prepared for these types of outage events,” Rodriguez said. “So I think the fact that we did bring in stuff from out of state just goes to show how rare an occurrence it is to have something that damages this much equipment all at once.”

The widespread and long lasting loss of power in the Aberdeen and American Falls areas resulted in authorities opening warming shelters at American Falls High School and the Aberdeen fire station.

“To those still without power, we truly appreciate your patience as we work to bring the lights back on as quickly and safely as possible,” Idaho Power stated via Facebook on Friday.

The utility was hesitant on Saturday to say exactly when it would have electricity restored to everyone because of the extensive damage caused by the storm.

The fact that the lights came back on by Sunday afternoon for all the homes impacted by the outage perhaps says something about Idaho Power’s resolve in the wake of one of the region’s worst windstorms in decades.

Rodriguez praised the utility’s line crews for their work in challenging conditions.

“Our line crews do an outstanding job. They do great work,” Rodriguez said. “They’ve been working around the clock in some pretty tough conditions, and so to do things safely and as efficiently as they do is a testament to the crews that we have and how hard they work for our customers.”

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