Power was restored to thousands of Southcentral Alaska residents overnight after more than 14 hours in the dark.
The source of the power outage to more than 3,000 residents was a downed tree, according to a corporate spokesperson for Chugach Electric Assocation, which provides power to much of the region.
The downed tree was discovered south of Anchorage late Sunday night. Residents of Girdwood confirmed power had been restored about 11:45 p.m., after more than 14 hours in the dark.
Phil Steyer, a Chugach employee responsible for dealing with reporters, said late Sunday that the downed tree had been discovered between Powerline Pass and Indian.
Indian is a tiny hamlet along the Seward Highway known well as the only place providing gas, beer, barbecue and other necessities between Alaska's largest city and the state's largest ski resort. Steyer said that most of the residents along Turnagain Arm had power restored. It took workers another couple of hours to get power back on to residents of Indian.
Nasty winter weather that battered Southcentral Alaska over the weekend hindered efforts to restore power in the Turnagain Arm region, where more than 3 feet of snow fell in some places over a 24-hour period. That's about the same amount of snow that falls on Chicago most winters.
Here's an update Chugach offered Monday morning on progress getting electricity back on between Portage and Hope:
Chugach believes only about a dozen customers remain without power from yesterday's storm.
The Indian Substation was re-energized at 1:44 a.m., picking up Chugach customers in the Indian and Bird areas.
At this point, the largest group of customers without power from Sunday's storm are in Sunrise. This is a group of about 10 homes about midway on the road to Hope.
Normally, Sunrise and Hope customers are fed from the Hope Substation. It is located along the Seward Highway near the Hope Highway. A 17-mile distribution line runs from the substation to Hope. Sometimes the line is near the highway, but much of the time it is in the forest over rough terrain away from the road. The storm that hit Dec. 11 tore down several spans of wire along the line.
For several days, customers in Hope have been getting power from a temporary generator Chugach took to the town but damage to the line remaining from the Dec. 11 storm has prevented Chugach from using that as a source for Sunrise customers. Late last week, Chugach had repaired the distribution line between Sunrise and the Hope Substation, re-energizing Sunrise customers. This path for power was lost when the 115-kilovolt transmission line that feeds the Hope Substation tripped offline in yesterday's storm.
The transmission line is currently not energized between Portage and Cooper Landing, and based on coordinated field work yesterday Chugach believes there is a problem on the line between Hope and Cooper Landing.
Weather permitting, Chugach plans a helicopter patrol of the transmission line from Anchorage to Cooper Landing.
Sunrise customers should be restored to service when Chugach can re-energize the Hope Substation.
A pair of customers at Summit Lake will be restored to service once the transmission line between Hope and Cooper Landing is re-energized.
Chugach is aware some customers across its service area have damaged facilities from the storm and will be working on those situations in the coming days.
Contact Eric Christopher Adams at eric(at)alaskadispatch.com