Early morning Mat-Su outage leaves up to 20K without power

As many as 20,000 Matanuska-Susitna residents have been without power this morning due to wind.

Matanuska Electric Association spokesperson Julie Estey says about 15,000 of those outages are due to a downed major transmission line serving the Palmer, Wasilla and Big Lake areas.

“So that was the majority,” Estey said. “They have now isolated that outage and are some of those substations back on.”

“So, the bulk of folks will be back in power, but we still have some isolated, tree-related outages from Eagle River on up to Willow.”

Estey says all available MEA crews and some contract crews are working on the outages.

She says power should be restored to most customers later this morning.