The wind event over the weekend took Mat Su Borough Emergency Services and Matanuska Electric Association by surprise.
Dennis Brodigan, Director of Emergency Services, says that he knew the winds were forecast but the storm of March 2003 was much worse as far as wind speeds. However, the wind direction and force of wind this weekend became overwhelming for responders borough-wide. The amount of downed trees and electrical outages were far worse than 2003.
Brodigan said within a 36-hour period, responders borough wide received 450 calls or so, the majority being calls about downed power lines and small fires. Captain Tim Morgan of Talkeetna’s fire department said only 5 calls were received by their department Friday, but their back-up power system failed for a short time and they had to scramble to get it back on line.
MEA is still working at restoring power to residents across the Borough. Their power outage phone number was overwhelmed over the weekend and they clearly didn’t have enough staff to respond to the 40,000 phone calls received.
Brodigan says as director of Borough emergency services, he is very concerned with the amount of people that were affected by the power outage and the Borough will be sitting down with MEA today to have a ‘post-wind-event’ meeting and see how they can more effectively deal with a situation like this in the future.
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For the residents that live in the upper valley that still don’t have power and don’t have a way to prepare food or have heat, the Upper Susitna Senior Center is open today starting at 1:30. The fire department, the seniors and KTNA are trying to get a handle on how many people are without power and have no one to turn to get heat or water. Residents that need assistance should know that the Senior Center is standing by to provide a warm shelter.
