Storm continues; roads still treacherous

The Anchorage snowfall caused havoc on city streets. Between Tuesday and 2:30 p.m. today, police responded to 103 accidents, including 10 with injuries, and 137 vehicles in distress.

In Mat-Su, towing companies said today was the busiest day of the year. Most calls were simply vehicles in the ditch, not injury accidents. Many of the problems were from people driving on unplowed roads, unable to tell where the edges of the road are. Vehicles kicking up swirls of snow made driving particularly difficult.

"I just don't think they can keep up," said Mel Healy, a dispatcher and phone wrangler at Matanuska Towing and Recovery of the plow trucks. "There's just too much snow out there."

The National Weather Service said the Anchorage area could see another inch or so overnight because of isolated bands of precipitation lingering, but things should be settling down, said Dave Stricklan, hydro-meteorological technician with the Weather Service.

"It definitely looks like some warmer air, maybe some moisture next week too," Stricklan said. "But for right now, the worst of it's over."

The Weather Service still has a blizzard warning in effect for the western Kenai Peninsula through Thursday morning.

Driving conditions should continue to be difficult along the Glenn Highway, with icy patches, ice glaze, blowing snow and reduced visibility, the state Department of Transportation said. This morning, the Transportation Department said, driving conditions on the Seward and Sterling highways were difficult due to snow and icy patches.

Thompson Pass on the Richardson Highway north of Valdez, where locals reported more than 60 inches of snow since Monday, was closed this morning due to avalanche-control work.

Residents in Anchorage and the Mat-Su awoke Wednesday to sporadic blackouts, likely the result of snow "unloading" off power lines and flipping them into each other, according to local power providers.

Matanuska Electric Association reported small neighborhood power outages totaling about 400 customers between Eagle River and Big Lake, said spokeswoman Lorali Carter. Crews were working to restore power.

Power was temporarily out this morning for about 8,300 customers of Chugach Electric Association in Northeast Anchorage, but that outage is over, said Patti Bogan, spokeswoman for Chugach. A couple of smaller outages also have happened, including on the Hillside.

AT&T's cell phone network had problems across Anchorage beginning this morning, and many users still had no cellular coverage by midafternoon. An AT&T spokeswoman said technicians have been working to fix the problem.

"A commercial power outage caused a hardware issue that is affecting 2G service in parts of Alaska," said Colleen Smith. "It is unknown whether this was due to the weather conditions."

Mat-Su Borough Operations and Maintenance manager Chuck Braun said borough-contracted road crews have been out plowing pretty steadily since snow started falling Tuesday. Borough road maintenance contracts require roads to be plowed after every four inches of accumulation. Tuesday and Wednesday, that was happening faster than plows could keep up.

Braun said plowing bus routes and main arteries are the priority for borough plow trucks. Subdivision roads will be cleared as soon as possible afterward. He asked homeowners to be patient with plow drivers.

"We understand that there are berms in driveways everywhere. Our main focus is to open roads and then we'll do cleanup," Braun said.

Mat-Su School District officials said a few buses were late arriving at school Wednesday morning but there were few buses reported in ditches. A planned field trip to Finger Lake for ice fishing went off smoothly, said routing specialist Chris Remick with the district. Borough plowed trucks cleared the way before buses arrived and the district sent a sander out to add extra traction.

"Considering the road conditions it went really well," Remick said.