GREAT FALLS — Power outages are affecting thousands of people across portions of north-central Montana on Thursday, May 14, 2026.
Among the communities affected as of 2:30 p.m. are areas in or around Conrad, Shelby, Heart Butte, Cut Bank, East Glacier, Browning, Shelby, Valier, Vaughn, Malta, and Chinook.
Glacier Electric Cooperative said in a Facebook post:
Due to the high winds impacting our area, we are currently experiencing outages throughout our service territory. Our crews are actively locating issues and working to restore power as safely and quickly as possible. Because of the severity of the wind conditions and the time required to identify and repair damage, members should be prepared for an extended outage. At this time, we do not have an estimated restoration time (ETA), and repairs could potentially take longer than 3 hours depending on the extent of damage found.
Other areas across the region have been hit by power outages in the preceding 24 hours due to powerful wind storms that swept through on Thursday afternoon and evening.
A customer can be a residence, apartment complex, or a business, meaning that several thousand people are affected.
There is no word yet on when power will be restored.
NorthWestern Energy says that crews are working to restore power as quickly and safely as possible.
Click here to see the NorthWestern Energy outage map.
REMINDER: if traffic signals are not working, intersections must be treated as "all-ways stop."
