High winds, downed lines cut power to thousands from Willow to Cooper Landing

High winds and falling trees cut power to thousands of residents today throughout the Mat-Su, Anchorage, and down the Kenai Peninsula as far as Cooper Landing.

Phil Steyer, spokesperson for Chugach Electric, says up to 4,000 customers across the company’s service area – from northeast Anchorage to the Kenai Peninsula, including Whittier and Tyonek – found themselves without power this morning.

“At this time, we have restored power to Whittier; we have restored the bulk of the customers in the Anchorage Bowl that were out,” Steyer said. “And we’re down to outages affecting Cooper Landing, the Hope and Sunrise area, Indian and Bird, and scattered across the Anchorage Bowl, and a few customers in Tyonek.”

Steyer estimates fewer than 1,000 Chugach customers remain without power.

Anchorage’s Municipal Light & Power experienced two outages this morning. Spokesperson Julie Harris says the first outage affected customers in East Anchorage and Airport Heights.

“About 1,400 customers were without power,” Harris said. “Most of those customers were back on within a couple of hours, and as of right now, we have only a handful of customers in Airport Heights near 16th Ave. and Debarr Rd. that are still without power.”

Harris says the second outage, which has been resolved, impacted around 75 ML&P customers near Boniface Parkway and the Glenn Highway.

In the Mat-Su, around 4,500 residents from Eagle River to Willow are still without power.

Crews from Chugach Electric, ML&P, and Matanuska Electric Association are working to resolve the remaining outages.