On November 15th, 2015, a windstorm swept through the Inland Northwest resulting in property damage, two deaths, and mass power outages.
“Ten years ago seems like it’s just flown by in the blink of an eye,” Ryan Bradeen, the Director of Business and Public Affairs at Avista Utilities said.
Bradeen worked for Avista in 2015 when the wind storm hit, but while his coworkers were scrambling and making a plan for power restoration, he was in the hospital while his wife was giving birth to his son.
“As my son was coming into this world, the lights blinked at the hospital, and that told me we had outages, mass outages,” he said.
Meanwhile, Chris Schlothauer, Avista Operations Manager for Coeur d’Alene was driving across the state line to Spokane.
“It was a major deal… and it was pretty obvious on the drive over here,” Schlothauer said.
He said that crews were eager to get out and start restoring power, but due to continued winds and safety concerns, the initial dispatch of crews had to be pulled back.
“The wind continued at a very high, high rate of speed. To the point where trees were still falling, limbs were cracking,” he said.
With around 180,000 Avista customers without power, mutual aid teams from around the nation started calling, offering their services.
“We even got calls as far as Hawaii,” Schlothauer said. “We have typically ten crews in the Spokane area. We had over, when it was all said and done between company crews and contractors, we had over 130.”
As soon as Bradeen could leave the hospital, he also went to work.
“It’s the type of thing where: okay Ryan, well once the kid is born, how about you come on in,” Schlothauer said.
“We were running chainsaw, we were running equipment, operating a handline, assisting with what we could,” Bradeen said
While they recall a chaotic scene the night of the storm, they most remember the community support for utility crews following the event.
“There were community members out on the sidewalk holding up signs thanking Avista, and to me, that was so powerful because at the time we needed it — all of us, including the community, were operating on zero sleep,” Bradeen said.
A similar message was echoed by Avista’s current President and CEO Heather Rosentrater.
“What I appreciate, having grown up in Spokane, in the area, is that we help each other as a community,” she said.
Coming from an engineering background, Rosentrater added that she was initially surprised to see the infrastructure failing. She said it was supposed to stand up to 100 mph winds. When she saw the extent of the damage though, the reason behind all of the outages became clear.
“It wasn’t that our infrastructure was failing, it was that you can’t build infrastructure that can withstand that kind of destruction from mother nature,” she said.
She said that she believes Avista would be more prepared for a storm like this if it were to happen in the future.
“I think that we would just be able to apply a lot of the things that we created during that storm more quickly,” she said.
Power was restored to all Avista customers ten days after the storm. That was the same day Bradeen’s son was able to come home from the hospital.
