Gallery: Windstorm barrels over power poles and trees near Blackfoot Friday
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Gusts exceeding 50 miles an hour uprooted trees and blew over power poles in the Blackfoot region Friday evening.
The damage started at about 5:52 p.m. in Taber and moved from the northwest to the southeast through Rockford, Moreland and into Blackfoot until 7:15 p.m.
“We had the five power poles down up in Taber, but also we had a power outage that covered most of the Blackfoot area,” Kevin Smith, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Pocatello office, said.
The outage affected about 7,700 Idaho Power customers, he reported.
Most of the electricity was restored between 8:30 p.m. and 2 a.m.
Power lines also went down near Moreland and Blackfoot, and one home lost a large number of shingles.
Weather stations recorded speeds of 59 miles an hour one mile southwest of Gibson, 53 miles an hour three miles west of Taber and 40 miles an hour in Blackfoot.
“Yesterday we had a very dry, low-level environment here in southeast Idaho that’s conducive to strong outflow winds, you know, strong winds coming out of showers and thunderstorms. We saw some activity throughout the day,” Smith said.
The National Weather Service is still calculating an estimate of the total financial damages caused by the high winds.
No injuries, fatalities or major structural damage were reported from the storm.
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