Brief power outage hits Wrangell and Petersburg

At approximately 4:20 p.m. last Friday, June 7, the power went out in the towns of Wrangell and Petersburg. Both islands completely lost power for about 40 minutes, before diesel generators were fired up around 5 p.m.

The outage occurred due to a problem with a breaker at Tyee Lake, according to Rod Rhoades with Wrangell Municipal Light and Power.

According to Rhoades, around 4:20 p.m. Breaker No. 10 at Tyee Lake opened up, shutting off power to the two towns. Tyee Lake provides

hydroelectric power to the two cities. Clay Hammer, with the Southeast Alaska Power Agency, said that a lightning strike might have been the cause of the outage, but he could not confirm it. They searched the whole line, he said, and found no damage or anything that would signify lightning. While the weather on Friday was conducive to lightning, there was no evidence one way or the other.

"We don't know," Hammer said. "A possible lightning strike, but nothing we could point our finger at."

Wrangell switched to generator power around 5 p.m. Petersburg Utility Director Karl Hagerman said that it took a little longer for his crew to restore power to Mitkof Island.

"It took us probably an hour from the time the lights went out to getting the lights back on for everybody," he said.

By 7:30 p.m., breaker No. 10 had been re-energized and both communities were able to shut their generators off and go back to power from Tyee Lake. Rhoades said that he wanted to use the opportunity to recognize his team for all their hard work. Many of them had already gone home for the day when the power went out, he said, but they all came back once it did and did not stop working until the problem was solved.

"I was just very, very proud of our electrical maintenance team here," he said.

 

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