When Wee Kare Daycare owner Terra Evans arrived to work Monday morning in Gillette, the power was out. She was left with no choice but to cancel preschool and day care classes for the day.

Residents in several parts of Wyoming awakened to downed tree limbs and power lines resulting from wet, heavy snow created by the season's first major storm.

"There was lots of snow, lots of breakage of trees, and no power," Evans said. "It was chaos."

The National Weather Service reported that Lander received the heaviest snowfall with 13 to 15 inches while Jeffrey City received a foot. Riverton and Dubois had nine inches each. Gillette received five inches, Buffalo seven and Sheridan two.

The storm pulled out of the area overnight Monday, but cooler weather and light precipitation are forecast through the remainder of the week. Temperatures are expected to drop into the 20s by Friday.

"It's not going to be real warm," said Susan Sanders, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Rapid City. "It's going to be some off and on precipitation all week."

More than a foot of snow fell in some areas near Riverton, knocking down branches and in some cases entire trees, which in turn took with them power lines.

As of 1 p.m. Monday, about 2,500 customers were without power in the Riverton area, according to the Rocky Mountain Power customer service line. Company spokesman Jeff Hymas said that number was down to about 700 by mid-afternoon.

While Evans spent the day catching up on work at home, Gillette city crews removed trees from power lines and broken branches from streets. By late morning, city crews had taken care of most of the power outages and were moving into cleanup mode.

"City crews are pretty much caught up," said Joe Lunne, public information officer for the city of Gillette.

However, the cleanup could take some time, Lunne said. He encouraged residents to move downed trees to the street for pickup and to call the city's electrical services department at 307-686-5277 if there are any limbs on or near power lines that needed to be cleared. A similar storm last fall took the city almost three weeks to clean up.

"We encourage residents to not walk under trees with broken limbs," Lunne said. "We don't want anyone to be injured."

Most schools across Campbell County remained open despite power outages off and on throughout the day.

"We've been hit-and-miss on things all day long, but working through it," said Boyd Brown, Campbell County School District associate superintendent of instructional support.

School was canceled at Meadowlark Elementary because of heating issues that were not resolved over the weekend. Overall, the school district was prepared for the day's events, Brown said.

"Last year we had a pretty good snow in September," Brown said. "We're usually ready for it."

With an average October snowfall of 4.7 inches, Gillette residents are concerned about what the coming winter months will bring.

"I definitely thought we'd maybe get an inch, inch-and-a-half, so this is definitely a shock to have it this early," said Lee Boschee, a delivery driver for Landmark Inc., who was shoveling the sidewalk in front of the store Monday morning.

This will be the first full winter in Gillette for Boschee, who moved here from South Dakota a year ago.

"This will definitely make deliveries interesting," Boschee said.