ALONG FLATHEAD LAKE — Hundreds of people spent much of Wednesday without power along the eastern shore of Flathead Lake.
One of the hardest hit areas was along Montana Highway 35 where winds caused trees to fall over and hit power lines.
There were also reports of multiple downed trees that took the power out all along the northeastern side of Flathead Lake.
Resident Scott Segaline saw at least three trees fall right outside of his house; he said, “Everybody’s power is out right now. We’ve had it out here -- sometimes in excess of almost a day.”
Trees weren’t the only things blowing over as basketball hoops, cherry stands, and garbage lined the sides of Highway 35 on Wednesday.
Segaline noted that cleanup from a previous windstorm that hit the area is still underway.
“They’re still trying to get stuff cleaned up here. And now we’ve got more issues up and down the highway, this is gonna be common all the way through here,” Segaline told MTN News.
A similar storm in September caused downed trees and power outages along the lake and while Segaline says a storm like Wednesday’s is rare, it’s not expected.
"Hey, I live in the country. I’m used to this kind of stuff. For us, we got gas, propane, we’ve got fire, you know that kind of stuff,” Segaline said. “It makes it a little bit difficult when you wanna eat and things like that, but I guess you gotta get used to a cold meal."
