Thousands of people in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough were still without power Monday after strong winds tore through the region over the weekend.
National Weather Service meteorologist Carson Jones said the hurricane-force gusts were caused by a clash of weather systems — a cool high pressure system over the Copper River Basin meeting a warmer low pressure system from the Gulf of Alaska.
“Essentially it creates kind of this siphon effect, where the really cold, dense air in the Copper River Basin is funneled and channeled down the mountainous valley, and it accelerates in what's called a catamatic wind, and it just it sits there until the pattern changes and gusts,” Jones said. “We are seeing anywhere from 40 to 100 miles an hour throughout the valley over the weekend and even this morning as well.”
The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District closed most schools Monday due to high winds and power outages, and most schools will be closed Tuesday as well. The weather service also extended its high wind warning to Tuesday.
After the winds die down, Jones said residents should be ready for a drop in temperatures.
“So it'll change from wind chill to actual chill temperature dropping,” Jones said. “But I would expect that the lows are going to be below zero once the wind dies down.”
Reporter Amy Bushatz with the Mat-Su Sentinel has been tracking the impacts of the winds and spoke with Alaska Public Media’s Wesley Early. Read the full interview below and if you are a Mat-Su resident impacted by the wind who would like to share your story, email Wesley at wearly@alaskapublic.org.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Wesley Early: You, of course, live in the Mat-Su. Can you describe what the winds were like over the weekend?
Amy Bushatz: The wind is hard to imagine if you've never experienced it, but let me take a crack at it. It sounds like a freight train coming at your house all the time. It is grating on the nervous system, and it often can make your house shake. If you have big windows, those might be rattling. When darkness falls, you cross your fingers and hope that you do not wake up in the morning to any destruction that you could not see overnight. And it's just a real experience. In fact, my friend and I went out of Mat-Su on Saturday to Eagle River, where there was no wind — and the sweet relief of that. Came back to just the hurricane-force winds again, Saturday afternoon, and was newly reminded just how intense that can feel.
WE: And today, you actually spent the morning driving around the region. What impacts are you seeing on the ground?
AB: I did. I spent about an hour or so driving around the core area of Mat-Su and what I saw was crews out fixing power lines, decimated fencing, porta-potties on their sides and places they do not belong, flipped over dumpsters, destroyed signs, destroyed building siding, shingles falling off, trees down on fences and even a trailer flipped over on the side of the George Parks Highway.
WE: Wow. Is the full extent of the damage known at this point?
AB: No, it is not. And in fact, the winds are still going, and so I don't think that we will really see the full extent of this damage until after they stop and everyone has a chance to go home and really see what has happened. Because, of course, so many people are without power that folks have maybe gone to a hotel or are staying with friends who do have power or are at an emergency shelter set up by the American Red Cross.
WE: And how many people are estimated to be without power? And are those outages concentrated to any certain areas?
AB: They're not. They are across the entirety of the Mat-Su core region. So as of mid-Monday afternoon, and keep in mind this number is constantly changing as crews bring outages back online and new outages occur, they had about 11,500 Matanuska Electric Association members without power. Thirteen crews in the field working on those outages. At that time, about 2,500 of those were in what we're going to call the Wasilla core area, which includes where Fred Meyer is and where Target is, that I think actually has come online since they last reported that. And so, like I said, it's constantly fluctuating. There are folks out in Big Lake that still have outages. There are folks in the Palmer, downtown Palmer core area, that have been out for days, and, in fact, there are a couple thousand people who have had no power since at least Saturday morning.
WE: And the outages also led to several school closures. Any sense as to when schools will reopen?
AB: Well, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District just announced that schools will also be closed on Tuesday in the majority of the Mat-Su. Now that is all the schools in Mat-Su, except for the schools in the Northern Valley. That's Talkeetna, Su Valley and Trapper Creek and Willow; those schools will remain open. They did not have nearly the wind event up there that the Lower Valley did.
WE: You mentioned that the Red Cross stood up an emergency shelter at the Menard Sports Complex in Wasilla for those impacted by the outages. How many people are currently staying there, and how long are officials anticipating it'll be needed?
AB: So borough emergency officials told me today that the shelter will stay open as long as it's needed, which could be well after the winds have died down. When the power goes back on, people might find that their homes have burst pipes, for example, and so they're going to keep that open as long as people need it. Volunteer Joani Godsil, who has been volunteering at the shelter since it opened on Saturday, and is actually commuting in from Eagle River to do that, she said they had 12 people stay over last night and dozens coming in and out over the course of today to warm up, charge their cell phones before going back home to check on whether they had power. And here's something interesting, pets and crates are allowed at this emergency shelter, and that's important to know, because it's a change from previous emergency shelters hosted at the Menard when pets were not allowed at all. So they, even right now, have a separate room where the crated pets can stay with their owners if they want to have them in there instead of in the main area.
