Power outage hits area

Power went out in Havre and areas along U.S. Highway 2 this morning, with some power being restored shortly after 7 a.m.

The outage occurred before 6 a.m., with NorthWestern Energy's website originally showing an outage with 690 customers affected, then the map breaking it down into several separate outages in Havre and one marked near Lohman.

Some areas of Havre, mostly south of 13th Street, had power about 6:30 a.m. but most of the northern part of town and along First Street and U.S. Highway 2 were out.

Power was being restored intermittently by 7 a.m. or earlier but large areas of town still had none by 7:30 a.m.

NorthWestern Energy said shortly after 7:30 that its Havre crews responded immediately and began to restore power to parts of the region, the majority of the customers who experienced the outage, but the downtown business district still was out.

Restoring power to that section could take several hours, spokersperson Jo Dee Black said, adding that crews were working to do that.

Black said that the crews’ first priority is restoration of power and they will investigate the cause after all customers have service restored.

Watch here for more updates.