Trees take down power lines and damage homes

Trees were up against powerful winds. Customers were left without power when trees fell into power lines and homeowners were left with damage.

“We had an outage of about 25 hundred customers, due to a tree that fell into the power line on Rollandet. Then we ended up with a smaller outage of approximately 300 customers where another tree ended up in a line on 22nd and Boulevard. We also had due to the high winds we had a couple of power lines actually slapped together which blew a fuse and put approximately another 500 customers out of power,” says Wid Ritchie, from Idaho Falls Power.

Some homeowners kept power but had a mess to clean up.

“Next thing I know we hear this great big smash in our living room. And we knew it was the trees coming down again. I flipped off the electricity real fast because last time it took our electricity off the roof. So this was two trees that came down yesterday,” says Tammy Oberg.

This isn’t the first time this has happened Tammy Oberg’s home.

“Last year we had two more come and hit the house over here. I had just gotten my groceries. It skinned the back end of this truck and it skinned the back of my food truck. And completely engulfed my husband’s little car.”

Part of the tree even made it inside.

“We looked and didn’t see any damage. So when I opened my bedroom door last night. I said ‘oh it smells like pine tree in here.’ the limb went through the roof, into a closet pushed a tote through another closet.”

She says she’s happy she wasn’t in the room at the time.

“It was so scary finding that last night and if we had been in bed and it had been just a few more feet. Who knows what could have happened.”

Idaho Falls Power says if your power is still out, give them a call at 208-612-8430. They also say be sure to keep your trees trimmed.