Anchorage Daily News

Albout 6,000 customers are still without power in the Anchorage, Eagle River and Valley areas after winds up to 100 mph early this morning carved paths of destruction, bringing down trees, tearing off house shingles and scattering lawn furniture into neighbors' yards.

In Anchorage, about 5,000 mostly Hillside residents were in the dark as of late Friday afternoon, said Chugach Electric spokeswoman Patti Bogan. She said she didn't know when power would be restored;the winds were still strong and may delay already maxed-out work crews.

Bogan said crews will work throughout the night, but still it may take until tomorrow to restore power to everyone.

At the height of the outages about 20,000 Chugach customers were without power, she said.

Another 1,000 or so Matanuska Electric Association customers also continued to be without power out in Eagle River and Meadow Lakes, said spokeswoman Lorali Carter. The company has brought in subcontracting crews to help, but it also could take until tomorrow to get all of their areas up and running.

"There's just a lot of damage to the lines, so it's taking us a long time to identify all the locations and do all the repairs," she said.

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