A KFC and A&W restaurant along the Palmer-Wasilla Highway in Wasilla was damaged by high winds on Sunday. Destructive winds battered the area just north of Anchorage, flipping small airplanes and semitrailers, forcing schools to close, leaving thousands without power and severely damaging the fast-food restaurant.
High winds, deep snow, below-zero temperatures, frozen pipes, canceled flights and ice-covered everything - it was not a merry Christmas or a happy new year for many Alaskans.
Ketchikan endured its coldest-ever Christmas, and the next day, too, shivering to a low of zero degrees on both days, breaking a 57-year-old record for Christmas Day. It was cold enough to freeze saltwater in shoreline areas of Bar Harbor, City Float, Mud Bight and Ward Cove.
The 350 residents of Hydaburg, on the southwest side of Prince of Wales Island, went without water for five days when the intake system at the community's dam froze up after Christmas. Water flow returned on New Year's Day.
Wrangell didn't get that cold but snow the last week of December and single-digit lows the first week of January made it feel like winter all the same. Keeping the wheels straight on icy streets and shoveling to keep walkways open were on new year's lists for residents.
The community missed only a couple of flights due to weather between Dec. 21 and this week, much better than the rest of the country where winter storms and crew shortages due to spreading COVID-19 infections led to cancellations of almost 20,000 flights between Dec. 24 and early this week.
Alaska Airlines was hit hard by winter weather at its hub in Seattle, forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights around the holidays - but the airline never put its Wrangell flights on the canceled board.
The airline the last week of December urged travelers to delay any "non-essential" trips through the New Year's weekend, warning that it might not be able to rebook stranded flyers for several days amid full flights and cancellations. Would-be passengers and their luggage stacked up at Sea-Tac Airport and other Alaska cities as passengers missed connecting flights.
The weather grounded flights by small carriers in Alaska, too, with hundreds of passengers, many from coastal villages, stranded in Bethel during the holidays because of bad weather and airports that lack full navigational aids.
Minnie Tunutmoak was stuck in Bethel for nearly a week, missing Christmas at home. She had been coming to the airport most days to try to catch a flight back home to Scammon Bay.
Community members across Bethel helped with donations of food and household items for the stranded travelers.
Damage from winter storms was widespread around the state. After more than a foot of snow in a Christmas storm, followed by rain, a portion of the roof of the IGA, the only grocery store in Delta Junction, collapsed on Dec. 26.
Fairbanks was buried by more than four feet of snow in December, its second-deepest snowfall for the month in history. The Denali Park headquarters recorded almost 78 inches of snow in December, according to the National Weather Service. Yes, that was a record.
As the snowstorms blew away, high winds knocked out power, closed highways, flipped small airplanes and semitrailers north of Anchorage over the New Year's weekend and into this week.
The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District canceled classes for Monday and Tuesday this week. At its peak, about 22,000 Matanuska Electric Association customers were without power on Sunday. The utility reported more than 8,500 still without power Tuesday morning, with the outage to continue all week for some.
A wind gust of 91 mph was recorded Sunday at the Glenn Highway interchange with the Parks Highway near Palmer, according to the National Weather Service, with a gust of 88 mph reported at the Palmer Municipal Airport.
A fast-food restaurant in Wasilla lost a wall to the windstorm on Sunday. No injuries were reported.
It was wind and snow in Juneau over the New Year's weekend. Thane Road south of downtown was hit by avalanches on Sunday and was closed at least through Tuesday. Power was out for a day along the road.
High wind warnings were in effect on Monday in Juneau, Haines and Skagway, dropping temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees with wind chill.
And while most of the state had cold and windy and snowy holidays, record daily high temperatures were recorded in several spots.
The high of 62 degrees on Dec. 26 in Cold Bay set a monthly record for December. In Kodiak, a high of 65 degrees on Dec. 26 beat the previous monthly high temperature by 20 degrees.
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