Power outage leaves 30,000 'in the dark'

MAT-SU — About half of Matanuska Electric Association’s 59,000 customers were without power from 4:30 to 5 p.m., Thursday.

MEA spokesperson Julie Estey said multiple substations went down after a tree fell on the lines in the Butte area, causing that substation to fail. From there, she said substations tripped like dominos from Glacier View to Wasilla leaving 30,000 customers in the dark.

“We were expecting a few people out of power, but not 30,000 people,” Estey said.

MEA had planned a power outage for about 300 people in the Sutton and Glacier View areas Thursday afternoon, but this large outage was unrelated, Estey said.

She said all of the substations were back online by 5:30 p.m., April 17 except for the Palmer and the Dow substations, which left about 3,045 MEA customers without power.

Power was restored to those customers by around 6:15 p.m., according to Cassie Campbell at MEA.

Estey had said that the outage was caused by a fire near the Butte substation. But crews on the ground later determined that a tree fell into a transmission line sparking the outage.