Fierce winds howl through Valley

MAT-SU -- Recent chilly gusts blasting through the Valley have inspired not only shivers, but unpleasant memories of last March's devastation. However, this week's winds have in general been far more benign than their counterparts during the spring of 2003.

This is not to suggest that "benign" would be the first adjective to spring to the minds of those caught in the gusts. "We've had our hands full just keeping our hats on," said Capt. Dennis Casanovas of the Palmer detachment of the Alaska State Troopers.

Despite the threat of lost headgear, the troopers have been busy during the last week.

"There have been a lot of business alarms triggered by the wind, and a lot of downed power lines," said Greg Wilkinson, information officer for the Alaska State Troopers, "but certainly nothing on the order of last year's damages."

Troopers responded Tuesday to a report of a Nissan Exterra that was blown off of the Glenn Highway by a 50-plus mph wind gust and rolled several times. The roof of the Cottonwood Creek Public Safety Building was damaged, according to Dennis Brodigan, acting director of the local emergency services department. Roughly 30 feet of the building's roof were ripped off by high winds. There were also traffic holdups owing to the loss of power to street lights on the Parks and Palmer-Wasilla Highways, but on the whole the winds wreaked surprisingly little damage, and a minimal amount when compared to the $4.5 million federal disaster in last March.

The winds also contributed to the derailment of an Alaska Railroad fuel train. The train was, however, not blown off the tracks by high winds, but rather jarred off course by sand from a nearby construction site that was blown onto the track. The train was moving less than 40 miles per hour at the time of the accident, and no injuries or cargo damage was reported.

"The good news is that when the engine hit the sand on the tracks, it cleared those tracks for the other cars, so the derailment only affected the engine," Patrick Flynn, spokesman for the railroad, said.

Though the Glenn Highway was closed for an hour because the train blocked the crossing near Palmer, Flynn reported that "the people trapped in traffic were very understanding, considering the situation."

Local utilities experienced outages, though none were serious.

"Compared to the windstorm last year, damage has been minimal," said Mike Pauley, spokesman for Matanuska Electric Association. "We've had the occasional tree falling on the lines, but there hasn't been much pole damage. Pauley mentioned that between 250 and 500 MEA customers were left without power for much of Tuesday and Wednesday, but by 2 a.m. Thursday all of the damage had been remedied.

"We've had very few reports of phone outages," said Jacqueline Whitstine of MTA. "We're pretty well prepared for this, especially after last March."

Whitstine also noted that MTA has numerous backup generators in the field to account for downed lines and other damages; these generators keep outages to a minimum.

Valley elementary schools were closed due to high winds and wind chill factors on Wednesday. All Valley schools, except those north of Willow and Glacier View, were also closed on Thursday because of the difficulty of plowing outlying subdivisions to allow bus operation.

Though much has been made of the recent nasty weather, it's nothing more than winter business as usual, according to meteorologists.

"This type of wind isn't uncommon during the winter," said Dan Keirns, forecaster for the State Weather Service. Keirns attributes the strong winds to a high-pressure system forming in the Interior and a low pressure system moving through the Gulf of Alaska.

"The atmosphere doesn't like this kind of strong imbalance," Keirns said. "When high and low pressure systems meet, there's always some rapid transfer of air."

Though the force of the Valley winds are not particularly unusual, their origin might be.

Keirns mentioned that, in most cases, high-force winter winds in the Valley occur when low pressure in the Aleutian chain draws high-pressure air out of the Valley area, creating the famed north-east wind, but the recent gusts in the Valley are more Arctic in origin.

Keirns stated that gusts of 75-80 mph were recorded in parts of the Valley on Tuesday, with a constant wind of roughly 50-55 mph.