Winds wreak havoc in Southwest Montana

By Chronicle Staff

Hurricane-force winds and snowfall wreaked havoc in Southwest Montana until early Tuesday morning, blowing over tractor-trailers, causing power outages and forcing a portion of Interstate 90 to close.

ERIK PETERSEN/CHRONICLE A sign listing gas prices at a Big Timber station was blown over by winds gusting up to 80 mph Monday night. Livingston had sustained winds of 56 mph, with gusts reaching 81 mph overnight, said Charlotte Camp, a National Weather Service meteorologist. Winds exceeding 75 mph are considered hurricane strength.

It was windy in the Gallatin Valley, too, blowing steady at 43 mph, with gusts reaching 53 mph.

In Big Timber, the Town Pump sign blew over. Sweet Grass County Commissioner Phil Hathaway said a travel trailer parked in his yard was upended by the wind and landed on its roof. Trees were uprooted in Livingston and Big Timber. And much of Paradise Valley was without electrical power most of Monday night.

After the howling winds blew over three tractor-trailers on I-90 Monday night, the state closed the highway through Livingston, Montana Highway Patrol Sgt. Jeff Mount said. Traffic was routed off the highway at the east and west exits, through Livingston and then back onto the highway. The strong winds also blew logs off a timber truck traveling on the frontage road.

“It's been a crazy 24 hours,” Northwestern Energy spokeswoman Claudia Rapkoch said Tuesday. “In my history, and I've been here 12 years, having high winds, damaging winds is not that unusual in itself, but to have them this widespread is unusual.

“We had high, damaging winds from Missoula all the way to Billings, from the Hi-Line all the way down to Yellowstone National Park. There really wasn't any part of our territory not affected by this storm.”

The persistent intensity of the wind caused a lot of damage to the utility's equipment, she said.

“We've had poles knocked down, sheared off, pulled down; trees falling through power lines, large debris flying through power lines - anything that wind can do to a power line it has done to a power line on our system during this event,” she said.

Then, on the heels of the wind came the snow.

The state reopened I-90 at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, and during the course of the morning commute, the Gallatin Valley and Livingston area received up to a half-inch of snow, Camp said.

“Last night we went from 80 mph winds Š and we had pretty much a blizzard this morning,” Mount said.

Icy, slushy road conditions contributed to several vehicles sliding off the road during the morning commute, including two semis on the Bozeman Pass, Mount said. Another vehicle crashed into a barricade. No one was injured in any of the wrecks.

In the Gallatin Valley, a handful of minor weather-related crashes and slide-offs occurred, Highway Patrol Sgt. Jay Nelson said. No one was seriously injured in those accidents either.

Meanwhile, Northwestern Energy crews were busy all day Tuesday trying to restore service, Rapkoch said. In this area, outages were reported in the Three Forks area, south of Manhattan, in the Bridger Canyon, in the Paradise Valley, around Livingston and in the Big Timber area.

“South of Manhattan we had 16 poles sheared off by wind,” Rapkoch said. “The customers on that line, as of (Tuesday evening), only three are still without power, although it did affect quite a few more.”

Damaged transmission lines in the Paradise Valley “caused outages up and down the valley, but those all seem to be back in service,” Rapkoch said.

Overall, “most of our problems were in outlying areas,” she said. “Most of our in-town services held quite well, probably because there's a lot more protection.”

The gusty winds and snow ceased by mid-morning Tuesday. The weather is expected to be partly cloudy Wednesday, with light winds of 5 to 15 mph. The high temperature is expected to be 45, with a low of 33.

Assistant Managing Editor Karin Ronnow and staff writers Scott McMillion and Ted Sullivan contributed to this report.

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