High winds on Saturday batter Libby, Lincoln County

Lincoln and Flathead counties were buffeted by high winds this weekend, causing damage and outages across Lincoln and Flathead counties.

A severe-weather warning remained in effect for southwestern Montana until midnight Monday, but the northwest still had strong gusts Monday afternoon. Winds were around 40 mph with gusts up to 60 mph.

The worst of the weather was Saturday. Libby Volunteer Fire Department was called out for several hours to deal with downed power lines and trees. No injuries or significant residential damage was reported, said Fire Chief Tom Wood.

“We took about seven calls,” Wood said. “And, we were out about 2 ½ hours. It was mostly OK.”

Libby saw several downed lines on houses on Colorado Avenue and Vicks Lane, some in trees on Highway 2 and Opal Drive and a controlled fire that got slightly out-of-hand at Cabinet View Golf Club, among other damages.

Wood said the biggest time and resource drain for his firefighters was waiting for the crews from Flathead Electric Co-op to kill the live wires. 

The co-op service area of 48,000 saw a few thousand customers lose power on Saturday. The winds Monday had another 500 customers from south Libby along Highway 2 to west Flathead County lose electricity.

Wendy Ostrom-Price, the co-op’s public relations officer, tried to contextualize the outages.

“There were probably a couple thousand out, not all at one time,” she said. “A lot of our service territory is heavily wooded areas with trees without taproots. The wind comes and just rips them out.”

Roofing and outbuildings were damaged around Lincoln County, but damage was mostly limited to debris in towns.

Marc McCully, the Road Crew Foreman for Libby, was surprised by the lack of extra work the storm caused.

“Normally, we’re busier than heck,” McCully said. “But I didn’t get a single call. Evidently, nothing was on county roads.”

McCully’s counterpart in Troy, Dave Kyriss, had a similar observation. 

“There were a few trees here and there,” he said. “A couple across some outbuildings, but nothing really other than that. People were just picking up limbs out of their yards.”

Flathead County had downed lines and trees as well. The majority of damage and outages in Lincoln County were minimal and relatively easy to access from the road. Most weather-related trouble stayed in the Highway 2 corridor.

The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department received several dozen calls during the high winds.

Calls to Troy Volunteer Fire Department went unreturned.