Power restored after quake

WASILLA — A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Southcentral Alaska early Sunday morning, knocking out power to thousands of homes in the Mat-Su but otherwise causing no other reported injuries or major damage in the Valley.

According to the National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, the shaker hit at 1:30 a.m. Local electric cooperative Matanuska Electric Association said two substations were knocked offline by the quake, including the Douglas substation near Willow and the Hospital substation, which impacted parts of Palmer and Wasilla.

According to updates the cooperative posted on its Facebook page, the lights were back on in Palmer and Wasilla within about two hours. Power was restored in the Willow area a short time later, with MEA reporting only scattered outages after that, including one in Sutton that cut power to 126 members and another in Big Lake that shut the lights off at 13 locations. As of 10:30 a.m., power was back on to all but two homes in the cooperative's service area.

MEA director of public relations Julie Estey said almost 5,000 of the cooperative's 60,000 members lost power.

"Quake-related outages impacted just under 5,000 members with the disruption of service to two substations immediately following the earthquake, hospital substation serving portions of Palmer and Wasilla and the Douglas substation serving Willow," Estey wrote in an email Sunday morning. "Two crews were called in from home to respond and power was restored to almost all members by 5:30 a.m."

In a follow-up phone call, Estey said the cause of the outages is being investigated, but in all likelihood the substations went down due to safety features that detect when mineral oil inside transformers isn't level.

"Because of the rocking and rolling of equipment we had those alarms going off all over our area," Estey said.

The quake didn't damage the cooperative's Eklutna power plant and Estey said it doesn't appear to have caused any significant damage to the power grid.

"It looks like the system operated as it was supposed to," she said.

To be safe, she said crews will give the entire system a check-up over the next few days.

"As far as we know there's no lasting impacts but we’re going to give a good once-over this week," she said.

The earthquake was centered near Iliamna, on the west side of Cook Inlet. The most significant damage appeared to be in Kenai, where two houses caught fire after a gas leak. The Kenai Fire Department reported the area had been evacuated and there were no injuries.

Mat-Su Borough deputy director of fire and emergency services Ken Barkley said Sunday the borough appeared to have gotten through the quake relatively unscathed.

"Small things have fallen off shelves is the most extensive reports we’ve got," said Barkley.

Barkley said the big quake woke him up.

"It rattled my place," he said. "It was definitely impressive."

The tsunami center reported at least three aftershocks larger than magnitude 4.1 in the hours after the initial temblor. There were no tsunami warnings issued.

Email Frontiersman editor Matt Tunseth at news@frontiersman.com or call (907) 352-2268.