By Martin J. Kidston
Residents across parts of Montana's Hi-Line were left without power early this morning as dense fog and cold temperatures interrupted power west of Havre.
Pat Patterson, Montana Power Company's manager of operations in Havre, said the outage occurred early Monday morning and lasted for two hours in Hingham, Kremlin and Gildford. Rudyard lost power for approximately one hour, while the outage in Chester, Joplin and Inverness was only temporary.
"We had some problems west of Havre," Patterson said. "We had ice on the lines, which caused a conductor to break."
Patterson said the power was restored by 10 a.m. after crews isolated the breakage and corrected the problem.
"Everyone's power is back on," Patterson said.
Patterson said approximately 1,700 Hi-Line residents were affected by the outage between Havre and Chester.
The National Weather Service reported that temperatures dipped into the upper teens early Monday morning. Dense fog was also reported. Forecasts suggest that temperatures will reach 40 degrees in the area today before dropping to the mid- to upper-20s Monday night.
