A power outage hit all of Juneau on Tuesday just after 11 a.m. Alaska Electric Light & Power switched on diesel back-up generation about an hour later and restored regular hydropower by 2 p.m.
Debbie Driscoll is the vice president of AEL&P. She said the outage occurred on a transmission line south of the city, between the west terminal near Taku Inlet and the Thane substation.
She said staff patrolled the area and couldn’t identify the cause, but the transmission line wasn’t damaged.
“It’s possible, when we’ve had situations like that, that a tree branch comes into contact with the line and clears or wildlife comes in contact with the line and clears the line,” Driscoll said.
She said other recent power disruptions are unrelated to Tuesday’s. North Douglas has had a string of outages in the past month caused by a squirrel, a tree, and an equipment issue.
Driscoll said that power outages are more common in the fall, when storms take down more trees that hit above-ground transmission lines.
