Strong winds in Anchorage and the Mat-Su have left many people without power in those areas Wednesday morning, with crews from three utilities working to bring them back online.
In Anchorage, Chugach Electric Association's online outage map showed about 1,800 customers without power as of 7:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Most of the South Anchorage outages were focused near Abbott and O'Malley roads between Lake Otis Parkway and Birch Road, as well as East 84th Avenue. The East Anchorage outages were largely near Patterson Street and east of Muldoon Road.
Chugach spokesman Phil Steyer said the utility's outages were widespread and "consistent with wind-related tree incidents."
"They're primarily along the Anchorage Hillside, but we've got outages throughout our service area from the Anchorage Bowl to Tyonek and Cooper Landing," Steyer said.
As of about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, Steyer said about 3,000 more customers than the outage map listed had lost power but subsequently had it restored. Further outages were being reported on the Hillside and northeast Anchorage, with crews also responding to Cooper Landing and Indian.
"Progress is being made," Steyer said. "We've got several Chugach crews, augmented by private contractors, out there."
Steyer said about 10,000 meters, roughly an eighth of its overall total, have been updated to report outages automatically. Many of those meters have been installed on the Hillside.
"In that case, those meters tell us when they're out of power on their own," Steyer said.
Steyer urged Chugach customers to report outages either on Chugach's website or by phone, at 762-7888 locally or outside Anchorage at 800-478-7494.
Municipal Light and Power also reported an outage in East Anchorage Wednesday morning near Northern Lights Boulevard and DeBarr Road via Twitter, saying power was fully restored to more than 1,000 affected customers by noon.
Any ML&P customers still affected by the outage can call the utility at 279-7671.
The Matanuska Electric Association's Facebook page first reported an outage affecting 300 members of the co-op, in "the Butte/Hunter Creek and Willow area," at about 5:45 a.m. Wednesday. A subsequent post reported "multiple wind-related outages" throughout the utility's service area.
In an earlier Facebook post, before the storm arrived, MEA noted it had regular and contract crews on standby in preparation for the possibility of outages based on high wind forecasts.
MEA spokeswoman Julie Estey said dispatchers didn't have an estimate of how many customers were affected by the outages, believed to be caused by trees blown down onto power lines by high winds overnight Tuesday.
"Major areas of Wasilla are out right now," Estey said. "We are throwing everything we have at restoring power."
Other areas hit by the outages included Willow, Butte, Chickaloon and Meadow Lakes.
MEA is asking anyone without power in the region to call its hotline at 746-7697 to report outages.
The Homer Electric Association's Facebook page reported a flurry of outages affecting about 800 customers overnight Tuesday, with about 440 members offline along Ohlson Mountain, Robinson Loop, St. Theresa and Kalifornsky Beach roads. As of about 6 a.m., its largest single outage spanned from Tutka Bay into Seldovia, with 365 people offline.
"There are reports of several trees down in the area where local residents say winds reached 100 mph," HEA officials wrote. "Weather permitting, HEA will be sending a crew to the area later this morning to begin restoration efforts."
Correction: An earlier version of this story contained incorrect information about outages in the Interior on the Golden Valley Electric Association system. That information was from an earlier storm and GVEA says power has been restored to all customers as of Wednesday afternoon.