(Public domain photo by Steve Hillebrand/USFWS)
The water treatment plant and dozens of homes in the Northwest Arctic village of Selawik are without power after an outage hit the community Sunday night.
The City of Selawik declared a local disaster on Tuesday afternoon. As of Wednesday morning, state officials said the water treatment plant is on back-up power.
Northwest Arctic Borough officials said the outage occurred just before 5 p.m. on Sunday. Repair workers from the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative were deployed to the village on Monday and temporarily restored power to part of the community.
State emergency officials said as of Tuesday morning, 150 homes, an apartment complex and the water treatment plant don’t have power.
While many residents said they have a secondary heat source at home, four families stayed overnight at the local school.
Selawik officials have ordered a temporary water supply from Kotzebue. The village has a population of about 850 people and is roughly 70 miles southeast of Kotzebue.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with information about the local disaster declaration.
