Idaho Falls power outage

Severe weather over the weekend caused widespread power outages in the Idaho Falls area.

While service to many customers was restored, new outages occurred Sunday night and early Monday morning.

High winds and icy conditions froze the power lines coming into the west side substation.

The powerful cold winds caused the substation to shut down.

Normally when that happens the power reroutes to the south of the city out to the Sugar Mill substation owned by the Rocky Mountain Power.

However, Rocky Mountain Power was also struck with a power outage.

Crews were sent out last night to manually reroute the power to get residents in Idaho falls back up and running.

Bud Cranor the Public Information Officer City of Idaho Falls says, ” O ur linemen were dispatched in the middle of the night to work in freezing conditions to respond to the power outage and they got power restored very quickly. They did a very great job.”

The winds are strong enough that it creates a safety hazard for line crews.

While work to restore power has been continually active over the weekend and this morning, some repairs may be delayed until weather conditions ease to allow the crews to work safely.