Page 13 - Flathead Beacon // 2.18.15

FLATHEADBEACON.COM NEWS FEBRUARY 18, 2015 | 13 Power Outage Darkens
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Whitefish for Over Two Hours
Equipment failure at main substation cuts power for roughly 2,400 residents, businesses
By DILLON TABISH of the Beacon
Equipment failure at the main sub- station in Whitefish caused a power out- age last Friday that darkened downtown for over two hours, stymieing traffic and creating a stir as the busy holiday week- end commenced.
Officers from the Montana Highway Patrol and Whitefish Police Depart- ment directed traffic through most of the downtown streets while crews with Flathead Electric Co-Op scrambled to repair a malfunction at the substation on Kalispell Street. The outage occurred just before 6 p.m. and was fixed by 8:10 p.m., according to Flathead Electric offi- cials.
“They were able to make the needed repairs. It shouldn’t have happened. It’s a piece of equipment that’s not passed its guaranteed level,” said Wendy Ostrom- Price, public relations officer with Flat- head Electric.
An estimated 2,400 residents and businesses in the greater downtown area lost power to varying degrees, she
Downtown Whitefish. BEACON FILE PHOTO
said.
The outage was the second notice-
able disruption in downtown Whitefish in as many months. On Jan. 3, a power outage left area businesses in the dark, the result of a blown transformer at the same Whitefish substation, which pro- vides power to the city.
Ostrom-Price said at the peak of the outage more than 6,300 customers were left in the dark. Power was restored across Whitefish by the early morning
hours of Jan. 4. She said it’s unclear what caused the transformer to break but that it was replaced the following day.
Even though both outages occurred during a busy holiday weekend, Ostrom- Price said the two malfunctions were not related to over-use.
“Unfortunately, that’s life and it hap- pens sometimes, especially with very complex electrical systems,” she said.
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Municipal Matters
A recap of recent city council and county commission meetings
KALISPELL
•The city council reviewed a pro- posed parking district near Flat- head High School during a work session on Feb. 9. The issue will be reviewed again at a later work ses- sion.
• Park crews are in the process of re- moving trees that are plagued by Dutch elm disease along the 1000 block of Second Avenue East. A con- tractor has also completed the re- moval of 23 elm trees on Third Av- enue West and Fourth Avenue East. Funds for this project were provid- ed by the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conserva- tion through a grant.
• The city's Building Department has issued four permits for new single- family residences and two town-
homes so far this year. Construc- tion drawings have been submit- ted for the first phase of Beehive Homes, a $1.1 million memory care facility to be constructed at 242 Stillwater Road. Preliminary draw- ings have also been submitted for Proven Graphics, a new print shop that will be located at 120 Westview Park Place. The initial valuation is estimated at $500,000. The city is anticipating a building permit for the Whitefish Credit Union remod- el of the Forum Builing in south Ka- lispell.
• CTA Architects Engineers is meet- ing with members of the public as part of the South Kalispell Urban Renewal Plan update. The firm has begun one-on-one meetings with residential and business owners near the city airport as part of its effort to update the urban renewal
plan for the area. The city is seek- ing to create a new blueprint that would identify all possible options in the area, rallying municipal re- sources and heavy community and stakeholder input, similar to how the recent Core Area Redevelop- ment Plan came together. By turn- ing its attention to the south, the city council would be forced to ad- dress a thorny subject with an un- certain future: the municipal air- port. The fate of the controversial site has been in limbo since voters shot down a host of proposed up- grades in November, creating more questions than answers related to its current and future status. Public meetings will be held in spring, ac- cording to CTA staff. The goal is to have recommendations and options for the city by October.
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