BILLINGS — A winter storm that rolled into Billings Thursday night and brought at least 8 inches of snow with it left thousands of Billings residents without power Saturday.

Debbie Singer, community relations manager for NorthWestern Energy in Billings, said that as of noon Saturday, 2,500 customers in the Billings area were without power. Hardest hit was the West End, but the number of affected customers in the area was not immediately available, Singer said. NorthWestern Energy received more than 1,500 service calls since midnight Saturday, with the bulk of them in the Billings area.

“It’s not like we have a major feeder out,” she said. “They are scattered outages. There are a lot of ‘one at a time’ calls, where just one individual customer or a small area might not have power.”

By 8 p.m. Saturday the number of people without power in the Billings area had dropped to less than 1,000, she said. They included pockets of residences in north Billings, Lockwood and the Heights.

Friday night and Saturday morning, 4,800 customers — more than 2,200 of them in Billings Heights — lost power, which was restored early Saturday morning. Smaller outages were reported in the Heights at about 7:30 a.m. but power was quickly restored.

“All that we have available is out working today,” NorthWestern spokeswoman Claudia Rapkoch said.

NorthWestern Energy set up an outage command center at its normal Billings service center, at 405 S. 20th St., to coordinate the effort. Sixteen crews — made up of seven NorthWestern Energy, five contract and three tree trimming crews — were working 16-hour shifts throughout the day. Four tree-trimming crews from Missoula and a response crew from Great Falls were also called in.

Terry Holzer, general manager of Yellowstone Valley Electric Co-Op, said two crews from the co-op worked nonstop from Friday night through Saturday afternoon. Customers in parts of Lockwood, Huntley and the Duck Creek area were without power for a short time Saturday morning he said. By 5 p.m. Saturday, power had been restored to all of the co-op’s customers and the crews had been sent home.

Most of the problems were caused by downed tree limbs falling on power lines. Only one pole broke, on Treasure Drive just off Rimrock Road, and had to be replaced, Holzer said. A tree fell into a line, breaking the line and the nearby pole.

“We haven’t had too much icing on the lines,” he said. “It’s falling past and not settling on the lines.”

Billings firefighters were called out throughout Saturday to deal with problems caused by the heavy, wet snow accumulating on trees and falling onto power lines. Battalion Chief Terry Larson, who came on shift at 7 a.m. Saturday, said the Fire Department had responded to 75 calls by 8 p.m.

“I’m pretty sure we’ll probably be over 100 in a 24-hour period,” he said.

Dispatchers were doing screening as calls came in, Larson said. Firefighters responded to “undeterminable serious-sounding calls,” he said. Once on scene, they would refer situations dealing with high-powered lines that might be live to the power company, Larson said.

Snow accumulations varied throughout the area, said meteorologist Brian Tesar of the National Weather Service

By 8 p.m. Saturday, many towns in the region were reporting heavy snowfall. Park City and Colstrip each received 5 inches, Red Lodge reported 26 inches and Nye had 20.

Areas in Eastern Montana received rain during the day Saturday because of warmer temperatures, Tesar said. But that changed Saturday evening as temperatures began to fall and the rain mixed with snow.

“We’re expecting it to turn to snow this evening, and that area to snow pretty hard,” he said. “They could get 6 to 10 inches tonight.”

According to the National Weather Service, Billings saw several records for Oct. 10 fall on Friday. A total of 3.1 inches of snow fell, breaking the old record of 2.8 inches, set in 1969. A record low maximum temperature was also set at 33 degrees. The old record was set in 1959 at 40 degrees.

Larson predicted that several more inches of wet, heavy snow would fall in the Billings area overnight. The brunt of the snow, he said, would fall overnight and Sunday morning, then begin to taper off in the afternoon and especially in the evening.

The storm did not interrupt highway and interstate travel in the area Saturday afternoon, although road conditions were wet and slushy, a Montana Department of Transportation spokeswoman said. Cindy Black said all roads — except for Zimmerman Trail and the Beartooth Pass — are open. Extreme driving conditions, including ice and drifting snow, were reported on Highway 3 and Highway 87 north of Billings, she said.

HarvestFest, the autumn festival under Skypoint sponsored by the Downtown Billings Association, was canceled early Saturday by event organizers. Mikal Young, marketing and events coordinator for the association, said the event was cancelled because of safety concerns.

Organizers will meet next week to discuss future plans for raffles scheduled for Saturday.

A scheduled football game at Daylis Stadium between Billings Central and Glendive was rescheduled for Monday as well.