Undoubtedly, many Kodiak residents noticed the power outages yesterday evening. Fortunately, power has been restored to the entirety of the island. According to a press release from Kodiak Electric Association, the issue yesterday came from a disconnect in the Terror Lake Dam transmission line, and the power is currently coming from the diesel generator system downtown.
Helicopter inspection will be occurring with weather permitting to assess the nature of the damage. KEA CEO Darron Scott said that it’s a tricky process.
“Getting access up into that mountain pass area where potentially the problem could be, is going to be difficult,” Scott said. “And depending on the problem, it is could take a little while. So we’ll try to get that information back to the community. Because if we are running diesel for a significant amount of time, that’s a very expensive process for the whole town.”
The diesel generators were kicked in to cover the whole town within 2 and a half hours, although some areas were back online in as little as 20 minutes. KMXT also lost power and was not transmitting for some of that duration; we are happy to report we are back on air.
In a phone call Friday evening, Darron Scott confirmed that the Terror Lake Dam line had been restored. He said that power would be switched off of diesel over the course of a few hours.