Morning power outage hits Hi-Line

A broken insulator put power out for a section of north-central Montana’s Hi-Line this morning, with some people waiting just more than 90 minutes for power to be restored.

Power went out shortly before 6 a.m., and Butch Larcombe of NorthWestern Energy said power was fully restored by about 7:30 a.m.

At the Havre Daily News, the power was restored shortly after 7 a.m.

Larcombe said the power outage was reported for most of Havre and some of Chinook and most everyone NorthWestern serves in between.

The Havre Daily News heard reports that power also was out west of Havre, with some reporting outages as far as Rudyard.

Christy Keto of Hill County Electric Cooperative said the outage also impacted some of that company’s customers, whose power is supplied by NorthWestern substations. Power was out for 470 meters at Hill County Electric customer residences and was out for up to 91 minutes, she said.

Larcombe said an insulator on a pole in North Havre carrying a 69 kilovolt line broke, causing a line to drop and starting a fire on the pole. The exact cause of the insulator failing is not known.

“We know it started with the insulator and things went downhill from there,” Larcombe said.

Power was not out in all of Havre, with lights on in some parts of Highland Park and lights on at family student housing on the hill east of Montana State University-Northern. Some lights were on along 5th Avenue from 13th Street south.

Larcombe said power was out for some 6,100 NorthWestern Energy customers.

“Crews are working to replace the pole where the insulator failed and fire occurred in North Havre,” he said. “At about 11 a.m., we will have to take about 68 customers in that area out of service while repairs are made. It may take a few hours.”

Havre Public Schools were running on schedule this morning after power was restored.