Power On, Power Off
by Jenny Chissus
Living in Seldovia, across the bay – over 17 miles from Homer by water or air – you would be amazed at the amount of comfort we enjoy in this quaint community off the road system!
We have HEA (Homer Electric) who provides the city and surrounding areas with electricity, within the city limits we have city water and sewer (Thank you Seldovia City!) and ACS provides great cell service, land lines and internet (some of the highest DSL on the peninsula – you can subscribe to over 7mbps) and I know GCI serves some folks here for cell phone service as well as SpitwSpots for internet. We are totally connected! Living, truly in the lap of luxury in the wilderness of Alaska!!
However, Sunday, we had many brown-outs until the lights flickered off for the last time! Snow was coming down, and the snow loads were heavy in multiple locations, causing problems in the line somewhere, causing our power to shut down. Fortunately for Seldovia, we have a generation plant that has the capability to power our city and out the road to Jakolof during times like these! So, we were back on line – but around 8pm the power went off in a more permanent fashion, as the generation plant lost power due to a faulty main breaker. So now our backup was inoperable! Nightfall made it impossible for crews to return Sunday night to make the repairs – they had already come and gone from Seldovia twice!
I have to say – on a walk about with my daughter Marina, and our yellow lab Maggie, around 9:30pm it was absolutely gorgeous outside with a full moon, mostly clear skies with fast moving clouds and almost a balmy 40 degrees! The sky was beautiful and the streets were lit up with lunar energy! Seeing Seldovia at night – without any lights on was a tranquil sight, quiet – with only soft candle lit windows here and there, and with a few boats in the bay with lights glistening on the water, and the green beacon light on Watch Point.
We were out of power from 8pm on Sunday evening until Monday – around 11:10am when full power was restored and the main breaker was replaced. Because it was just the main breaker that was faulty, not allowing the generation plant to kick on, once that was repaired (flown in by helicopter on Monday) then our back-up system was back online for the next power outage! The helicopter dropped off the new control switch/breaker box (very big) and took off with the old damaged one at the HEA plant here, just off Anderson Way without incident!
I have to say that I can’t remember when we lost the generation plant for such an extended time! Typically, we are very spoiled in town to have service restored so quickly in our remote location! I’m still urging Joe Gallagher with HEA to station an HEA representative here in Seldovia for these type of emergencies. We had been so fortunate for many years as Gerry Willard took care of things for HEA on this site when possible – the community certainly misses our friend and “Seldovia Loving” Gerry.
Because of the power outage, we discovered Monday morning that school at Susan B English was cancelled – a real “Snow Day” – making a welcome 3 day weekend for the kids – and teachers!
Thank you HEA for working so hard to get Seldovia back on line – it certainly was not an easy task this weekend! Living in Seldovia – is always an adventure!
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