A fault in a regional power source knocked out power to most of Ketchikan for about two hours Thursday afternoon.
Ketchikan Public Utility electric division manager Jeremy Bynum said the island lost the portion of electricity supplied by the Southeast Alaska Power Agency (SEAPA). Bynum said they’re still investigating the outage, but though it wasn’t caused by the work being done at Sunday’s landslide zone, it was complicated by it.
“The main backbone of our system, which provides power from the north end to the south end, is split in half right now, at the Third Avenue Bypass,” Bynum said. “That’s where our primary, main feeder goes through to connect the island.”
Bynum said that primary energy feeder is currently de-energized, and the workaround they have in place makes it more difficult to restore power after outages.
The outage started around 12:15 p.m. and most customers had power restored by 2:30 p.m., with all power back up by 3 pm.
SEAPA also supplies power to Petersburg and Wrangell, but Bynum wasn’t aware of any outages in those communities.
Bynum said other than the homes that were directly affected by the landslide, customers shouldn’t expect any planned outages during the ongoing cleanup work.
