The cities of Wrangell and Petersburg both briefly lost power on Friday morning, Jan. 10. The power outage occurred a little before 11 a.m. and lasted about an hour. Both cities typically receive their electricity from a hydro plant at Tyee Lake, near Bradfield Canal. Rod Rhoades, light and power director for Wrangell, said that there was a "phase to phase fault" in the power line between the lake and the two cities. He speculated that this could mean something like a tree branch fell on the power lines, but added that the problem could possibly clear itself before it was discovered. Both communities were running on diesel power until they could get the power lines up and running again.
Petersburg Borough Utility Director Karl Hagerman had just ended a teleconference with SEAPA when the power went out. In the teleconference, he was encouraged to start the borough's diesel generators immediately should the power go out during cold weather in order to restore power to the community as soon as possible to prevent homes and businesses from getting too cold. The diesel generators restored power to Petersburg in about an hour, said Hagerman. The generators ran for approximately four hours.
"We have to bring the town back online in pieces so that we can control the amount of load that is being applied to the diesel plant," said Hagerman. "If we bring on too much too soon, we can have a trip on the generators that puts people back in the dark."
A statement by Clay Hammer, operations manager for the Southeast Alaska Power Agency, went into a little more detail about what happened.
"This Morning Tyee Lake's breaker T-10 opened at 10:52 on a phase A-B fault cutting power in Wrangell and Petersburg," the statement reads. "Distance relays at the Tyee plant indicated that the location of the fault was approximately 46-48 miles from the Tyee plant or roughly 1-2 miles south of the Wrangell Switchyard ... The most likely culprit as indicated by a phase to phase fault may have been a tree or snow laden branch across the conductors."
In a Facebook post later in the afternoon on Friday, Rhoades confirmed that the power lines in the probable fault area were clear after checking via aircraft and drone. The cause of the fault was not identified and likely cleared itself, and he reiterated that this was not unusual, but it happened about two miles south of the Wrangell substation. Breaker T-10 was closed again around 2:20 p.m., according to Hammer's statement, meaning it was energized and working again. Restoration of SEAPA power was complete by 3:15 p.m.
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