The extended power outage caused by Tuesday night's windstorm has led to a run on small generators. The portable machines, usually gas-powered, can provide electricity sufficient for a single home or a few appliances.
"This just wiped us out," said Stanley Nelson, the store operator at Home Depot in North Anchorage. Nelson said his whole supply of generators was sold by Wednesday -- with the exception of one that operates on propane.
Calls to other area construction supply and hardware stores selling generators came up with similar reports, and the drought wasn't limited to Anchorage. Neither the Lowe's on Tudor Road or in Wasilla had any left.
"It's huge," said Harlia Pace, general manager of Alaska Cycle Center, which sells the popular small Honda generators. "I had 50 or 60 in stock before the storm and the last one went out the door an hour ago. It just slammed us."
Pace said the store was taking orders for the next shipment, expected sometime next week.
Losing electricity doesn't just mean going without lights. Many gas ovens can only be lit electronically. Digital clocks go blank. Appliances don't work. Cellphones don't charge. Furnaces don't switch on.
Joanna Knight and her family -- which includes a 2-year-old and a 10-year old -- endured the first night of the storm with no heat, but when the temperature in their Cheney Lake-area house dipped below 50 degrees, they left to stay with family.
But what most worried Knight, and legions of other Anchorage residents it seems, were the slowly-thawing contents of her chest freezer and the freezer in her refrigerator.
"We got lucky and just finished all of our game meat before the storm," she said. "But we have a bunch of fish and lobster galore."
As of Wednesday morning, everything was still cool, but the power had not returned. Knight started calling stores to find a generator.
"There's nothing," she said. "We turned to CraigsList and I think we found one. We'll pick it up at 5 o'clock tonight."
She was also lucky, she said, in that a recently-bagged caribou was still being prepared at a commercial meat processor. "I hope they're not done anytime soon," she said.
Frozen fish was also on the mind of Roxana Kashatok, who bought one of the last generators at Sportsman's Warehouse on Thursday afternoon. "I had a freezer full of fish that my sister had sent me from Sand Point," she said. "We had to pay like $75 to even get it here -- and I bought a generator today $1,000 to save that fish."
The power had not returned to Kashatok's Huffman neighborhood as of late Thursday, but the generator did the trick. After running it for 40 minutes, she checked the freezer and found that though the top layer had become "a little bit soft," everything underneath remained frozen hard.
The circumstances were more difficult for Anita Archuleta, who had 300 pounds of fresh frozen Kenai salmon plus 150 pounds of smoked salmon and salmon jerky in two freezers when she left for a vacation in Maine.
"And I just picked the smoked up from the processor a couple days before I left," she said. "Just my luck!"
Neighbors who had power strung together four extension chords across the street to reach her Lake Otis house and provide juice to her freezers.
Kashatok maximized the cold in her unpowered freezer by not opening it until she had it hooked up to power. Knight had opened hers "only for two seconds" to check the contents.
Others, unable to power their freezers, were buying ice to pack around the food.
"We have been swamped selling dry ice alone," said Sena Scott of 10th and M Lockers. There was a waiting list for dry ice, she said, and some were buying regular bags of ice as a substitute.
"We're also renting space in the locker," Scott said. "We tell people to put their food in the biggest box they have and bring it to us." It costs $8 a day or $25 a week to store one box, an additional $10 per week for an additional box.
"A lot of people are doing that," Scott said.
Mike's Quality Meats in Eagle River also offers freezer storage. Their rates are $5 per day per box.
Aside from thawing freezers, downed trees have been a problem for property owners in the wake of the storm. The good news is that chain saws are more readily available. As of Thursday afternoon, two remained at Lowe's on Tudor and the store in Wasilla had plenty of Poulans and Husqvarnas. Fessler Equipment, a commercial chain saw dealer on Commercial Drive in Anchorage, said it remained well-stocked.
Reach Mike Dunham at mdunham@adn.com or 257-4332.
By MIKE DUNHAM
Anchorage Daily News