As temps drop, Quinhagak residents 'not happy' with ongoing power ...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - A village in Southwest Alaska is enduring a multi-day power outage that has forced some residents to evacuate their homes to find warmth.
According to Quinhagak resident Eric Brown, the outage started on Friday afternoon when he was at the store.
“It was during the day, I thought it was just going to be a hiccup,” Brown said on Sunday. “When it didn’t kick on right away, from my experience working [at AVEC] I knew it was going to be something major.”
Brown, who recently left his job at the village’s electric utility, Alaska Village Electric Cooperative (AVEC), said two of the town’s three diesel generators are down with varying issues, leaving half of the town without power. He estimates about 50 or 60 homes are without power in the village of approximately 900 people.
A village outside of Bethel is enduring a multi-day power outage that has forced some residents to evacuate their homes to find warmth.(Eric Brown)There are three wind turbines in the village, Brown said, but they require operational generators to provide power.
“People that are living on the south side — they’re not happy,” Brown said.
AVEC is aware of the issue and on Saturday flew in a mechanic from Emmonak, according to multiple sources.
“Last night we started getting some below zero temps and people are worried about their water lines freezing up,” Brown said. “It’s affected our airport … they have no runway lights. It’s affecting the post office.”
Brown said flights have been shuffled to account for the darkened runway.
According to another resident of Quinhagak, Jennifer Spinola, the school has been an invaluable resource over the past couple of days. Spinola’s family home is one of those without power.
Starting on Saturday, her family has been staying in her husband Athos’s classroom in the village school, about a half-mile away from teacher housing. The facility runs off its own generators.
According to its website, the K-12 school serves about 220 students and employs over 30 staff members.
“I have no idea when this is going to be done,” Spinola said.
Despite being school-bound, Spinola’s family has remained fed and bathed thanks to the school facilities. She said the family was even brought some smelts.
Luckily, due to the recent drop in temperature, frozen goods have stayed that way over the weekend.
“We really enjoy living in Quinhagak because people have been so kind, like the kids brought a giant bag of smelt,” Spinola said. “And I had different people invite us to stay over at their house where it is warm, even people who weren’t there, they said, ‘Oh, just go in and talk to my husband or my son, they’ll let you in,’ … but we have a family of six so we found it was just better to have all our stuff in one place.”
Alaska’s News Source reached out to AVEC, but was told no one could speak on the outage until Monday.
A village outside of Bethel is enduring a multi-day power outage that has forced some residents to evacuate their homes to find warmth.(Eric Brown)Copyright 2023 KTUU. All rights reserved.
