Tree in lines causes outage

WASILLA — A contractor clearing trees for a private landowner accidentally set off a outage that left nearly 9,000 Matanuska Electric Association customers without power for more than an hour Wednesday.

Some 8,929 customers from the Butte to Trunk Road, including the Sutton area to Matanuska Glacier lost electrical service beginning at 1:28 p.m., April 18, according to MEA spokesperson Cheryll Heinze.

She said multiple MEA line crews inspected miles of line before locating the source near the intersection of Trunk Road and the Palmer Wasilla Highway.

“One of the cut trees had come down into the MEA right-of-way, falling across all three phases of the 115kv transmission line located there and causing the service failure,” Heinze said.

Power was restored at 2:35 p.m.

“This outage could have been dealt with and power restored earlier if the contractor would just have called us and let us know what happened,” said Hank Gocke, supervisor of dispatch for Matanuska Electric Association. “Instead, our crews were out patrolling miles of line to find the problem and a lot of valuable time was lost.”

MEA maintains a 24-hour hotline to report outages and other electrical emergencies.

In the Mat-Su Borough, call 746-7697. In Eagle River, call 696-7697. If the customer determines it is an emergency — such as a tree on a transmission line — he or she can also contact 911.

MEA maintains rights-of-way along 4,300 miles of line. MEA clearing crews also are available to help property owners deal with problem trees outside of MEA rights-of-way. Property owners should contact the utility to request assistance from MEA clearing crews at 761-9307.