Mat-Su windstorm takes power out for thousands

A powerful windstorm ripping through the Matanuska-Susitna Borough on Saturday has left more than 20,800 Matanuska Electric Association customers without power, with crews scrambling to keep up as fresh outages continue to appear across the region.

As of 1:10 p.m., MEA reported 20,836 members were offline. Some of the largest outage areas included:

• Palmer and surrounding area: 3,800 members

• Knik-Goose Bay, Fairview, Ranch Subdivision: 8,000 members

• Talkeetna north to Denali State Park: 1,700 members

• Palmer–Wasilla Highway and Trunk Road to Palmer Fishhook/Hatcher Pass: 2,000 members

• Lazy Mountain: 885 members

• Engstrom: 927 members — where crews are dealing with a broken pole expected to take many hours to repair

• Soapstone/Sutton north to Glacier View: 1,489 members

• Palmer–Wasilla Highway/Midtown Estates: 625 members

MEA said there are “dozens more outages” throughout the service area, with winds toppling trees, breaking poles, and downing lines. Crews are working around the clock, and the cooperative thanked residents for reports of fallen trees and wires, which are being routed to dispatchers and field teams. Later in the afternoon, the outages stood at more than 17,000.

The Mat-Su, which is an area known for its wind, is being hit with some of the strongest winds of the season, part of a statewide weather pattern that brought rough conditions to nearly every region on Saturday. Heavy gusts, snow squalls, and icy roads were reported from Anchorage to Fairbanks.

The storm also coincided with a sequence of moderate to severe earthquakes along Alaska’s southern coast late Saturday morning and early afternoon, adding to the interesting meteorological and geological