As high temperatures set in, over 8,200 Avista customers have lost power in parts of Spokane in Washington state and the company is asking people to conserve energy. According to the Avista outage map, approximately 4,800 users in North Spokane do not have power since Monday afternoon.

The outage is affecting people in Nevada-Lidgerwood neighborhood residents in the country homes area.  The first outage was reported at 1:45 pm and is set to be restored by 4:30 pm for most of the customers; a total of 4,865 customers were affected as of 2 pm.

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Meanwhile, another outage was reported around 3:10 pm on Monday affecting 2,070 customers in the Emerson-Garfield neighborhood extending into the Logan neighborhood.  Also, 1,353 customers in west Spokane are without power, the outages are estimated to restore by 6 pm. 

Around 8,227 customers have lost power in Spokane as of 3:30 pm, which may not mark the end of Avista’s troubles keeping up with demand. The company is asking its electric customers to reduce electricity use from 1 to 8 p.m. starting Thursday and to reduce their usage as temperatures are expected to eclipse 100 degrees this week.

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The company representatives said that the high temperatures are straining the electric system, which serves 40,000 customers across a 30,000-square-mile territory in Eastern Washington, North Idaho, and parts of southern and eastern Oregon.

Although Avista has not determined the cause of the outage, crews have been dispatched to the areas. Avista manages the system in the summer months by shifting electricity load to accommodate increased usage in certain areas, according to Monday’s announcement.