Power outage in Lincoln County closes schools and businesses

LIBBY — A storm hit Lincoln County Wednesday night causing widespread power outages that lasted into Thursday morning causing schools and businesses across Lincoln County to close.

"It came through, and it just blacked everything out real fast, lot lots of thunder, lots lots of lightning, no power. In the end completely no power in town," said Mountain Meadows Gifts owner Carol Cady.

The power outage affected nearly 7,000 people in and around Libby. Flathead Electric Co-Op reports the Bonneville Power Administration — which supplies the power for FEC — was impacted by the storms, resulting in power outages.

"Typically, it's not, not that unusual to lose power, and then the power usually comes back sometime in the middle of the night. And I woke up at one o'clock in the morning and realized that the power is still out when we drove down to dispatch and saw the whole town of Libby was dark, I thought, Oh, this is not a good deal," said Libby Schools Superintendent Ron Goodman.

Along with the power outages, cell phone service was impacted in Libby which prevented school administrators from notifying parents that school was canceled Thursday.

"And so we didn't have the ability to communicate with our parents that we have on parent square. It's an app that we use to communicate with parents. And so we were completely out of luck. Obviously, there's no internet at the building, So how do we communicate with parents? Given the fact I said another situation like that, but I don't I don't know how that's, that's, that's the big conundrum at this point. Like I said earlier, I guess if you realize there's no power I think you realize why the busses aren't showing up, too," said Goodman.

But people were making the best of the power outage and school closures by enjoying the nice weather at the park and having picnics.

"Of course, we're Montanans, we want bacon and eggs and coffee. So we just set up out here in the parking lot. Then our friends stop by and we feed them," said Cady.

Power was restored Thursday afternoon throughout Lincoln County.