More than 200 homes in Whitefish and West Valley are experiencing power outages following a brief but significant thunderstorm that swept the valley Thursday morning.
Flathead Electric Cooperative reported the power outages at roughly 8 a.m. after lightning struck a power line in West Valley.
Although a crew has already been dispatched to deal with the outage, the company does not yet have an estimate of when they will be able to restore power to the area.
In Whitefish, around 100 customers are sporadically without power, and again the cause is thought to have been a lightning strike along the power line or on equipment, according to Stephanie Wallace of Flathead Electric.
Wallace said the combination of wind and lightning is always hard to deal with, even though this time it appears that lightning alone was responsible for the outages. She said crews will be working to restore power to all customers and that she is confident power would be restored soon.