Overnight storm takes out power, forces closures throughout Juneau area

Juneau was without power Monday morning after an overnight winter storm caused what Alaska Electric Light and Power called an “area wide outage.”

The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning Sunday evening for Glacier Bay, Juneau and northern Admiralty Island calling for several inches of heavy, wet snow through 9 a.m. Monday. By early morning, a mix or rain, ice and snow had taken down power lines and made travel dangerous, leading to a slew of closure announcements.

At 7 a.m., AEL&P announced on social media that the heavy snow was causing “multiple issues,” and to expect further outages, but that they had “all hands on deck” to restore power. By 9:45 a.m., the power company said most customers had power, but crews were still working to restore power north of Tee Harbor and on Keegan Street.

The City and Borough of Juneau announced that city offices would be closed to the public today.

Juneau schools are closed as well, but Superintendent Bridget Weiss said the district is holding some limited online instruction.

“Rather than canceling distance learning all together, we kept it going for those that could,” Weiss said. “We know we have some teachers without power, we have some kids without power. So basically, we just asked teachers to, you know, check in with kids if they could, and if they couldn’t, we’ll just get back at it tomorrow.”

The school district at first announced that school meals would be available today but called that off soon after.

“The roads just were too too hazardous even for our buses to deliver,” Weiss said.

The city also announced that bus service would switch to its winter schedule through midnight on Monday, which means several routes were canceled and some bus stops moved. But according to Capital Transit, the remaining service was mostly on time, with the exception of short delays on the North Douglas and Valley Express lines.

A downed power line at the corner of 4th and Harris Streets in Juneau. (Rashah McChesney/KTOO)

Alaska Waste spokesperson Laurel Andrews said conditions were causing problems for trash pickup as well.

“The roads are very bad and safety is our first priority,” Andrews said. “For residential customers who are missed today, please call our office and we will give you the option of free extra bags on your next day of service.”

All KTOO stations, including 360 North statewide, were off the air this morning due to the power outage and a backup equipment failure. Power was restored around 9:30 a.m. and staff is working to get services back running.

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

Sign up for The Signal

Top Alaska stories delivered to your inbox every week

Site notifications
Update notification options
Subscribe to notifications