14,000 MEA customers without power Monday afternoon

PALMER — An outage Monday afternoon left 14,000 Matanuska Electric Association members in the dark.

“There is an outage on the transmission line between Eklutna and ML&P’s Plant 2. Approx. 15,000 members impacted. Crews are responding,” reads a notice posted to the electrical co-op’s Twitter page, referring to the Anchorage power plant along the Glenn Highway.

The coop later revised that number down to 14,000 and said the outage started at noon. By 1:30 p.m. crews had switched the power back on for 3,400 of those customers. Soon after, another 4,400 saw power restored. By 4:30 p.m. MEA said it had the lights back on for all of its members.

The coop said that the outage was due to an equipment failure at its Pipple Substation north of Eagle River. The outage stretched across Eagle River, Birchwood, Chugiak and Peters Creek.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.