Due to heavy snow and downed trees on power lines, many outages are reported throughout the region.
As of 9:40 on Saturday, Inland Power reported 5,409 customers out throughout Spokane County with another 1,669 in neighboring counties out. Most of those customers could be restored by Sunday evening, but the company estimates outages through Tuesday.
Avista reports scattered outages down Lake Coeur d'Alene and the I-90 corridor in Northern Idaho.
Kootenai Electric and Inland Power both report they are using helicopters to blow snow off lines and trees near power lines. The heavy snow has built up to the point where it can cause lines to pull from the weight, causing additional outages and unsafe conditions for work crews.
KPBX returned to the air shortly after 9 a.m. December 26, marking almost two days of static from a power outage at the station's transmitter tower on Mica Peak.