SPOKANE, Wash. — It was a rude awakening for the Inland Northwest Tuesday. Around 6-7" of snow fell in the Spokane area, with some areas seeing quite a bit more.
"I was expecting a lot less than this," said Benjamin Rowbotham, who lives in Spokane. "Just a bit more work."
The overnight snowfall left people like Rowbotham pulling out the snowblower from storage.
"You know, it was tucked into the far back part of my garage. So, it was away and I wasn't expecting to pull it out," Rowbotham said.
The late February storm meant winter is far from over, along with the work it brings.
"Crews have been out since about four o'clock last night pretreating roads and once the snow started to fall they've been out all night and throughout the morning," WSDOT spokesperson Ryan Overton said Tuesday morning.
WSDOT plows dealt with icy conditions that left a backup on I-90 after a city bus slid out, blocking all lanes.
Spokane launched a full-city plow late Tuesday morning.
"This isn't the light snow, fluffy snow that just kind of flies off the side of the plow. This is some thicker, heavier stuff," Overton said.
That heavy snow also downed some power lines and caused major outages. Around 898 customers were impacted by outages, an Avista spokesperson said.
"Wet, heavy snow can cause trees and limbs to come into contact with power lines resulting in an outage for our customers. Avista crews were prepared to respond immediately and the majority of customers’ power was restored within two hours," Avista reported.
February may be over, but it's not going quietly.
"I was really surprised. Looked out the window and I was expecting an inch and this is what I get," said Ted Carman.
"I just deal with it," Rowbotham said. "It's usual Spokane, Pacific Northwest. We're used to it."
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