Power has been restored to all Adak residents following a 17-day outage that forced the community to rely on generators for heat and electricity. City Council members met Tuesday evening and discussed the electrical failure.
Council member Mark Cheney called the experience rough and expensive for island residents and business owners.
“It hurt,” he said. “And I’m sure everybody felt that crunch on having to go get gas and keep generators going to stay warm.”
The cost added up quickly, with diesel at the pump in Adak priced at around $5.82 a gallon.
TDX Adak Generating, a subsidiary of TDX Power, has supplied electricity to the community since 2008. The Oct. 3 outage was caused by a catastrophic alternator failure in the community’s backup generator.
TDX commandeered a large generator from a closed fish processing plant to provide power to a part of the city, like the school building, which houses the clinic and city offices. Yet, 20 homes remained without power.
The company flew in a repair crew on Oct. 18.
“We can say today that as of yesterday [Oct. 20] at 1 p.m. power has been restored to all of those homes,” said TDX Power Assistant General Manager Lynette Ampadu.
She said technicians pulled cables from a junction box to repair underground wiring and replaced damaged cutouts on overhead lines.
Speaking to Adak’s city council, Ampadu explained the broader challenges facing the local power system.
“We’re dealing with a lot of failed infrastructure out there in Adak, and it’s aging,” she said.
TDX only had one backup on the island. According to Ampadu, the company was caught in the middle of transitioning between the old and new power plants when the catastrophic failure happened.
She said TDX had already been taking proactive steps before the outage occurred, noting the company had a replacement generator on a barge headed to Adak before Oct. 3 to avoid being stuck with only one backup.
Ampadu said the company would work to ensure adequate parts and supplies are on the island for future emergencies.
The repairs, however, took far longer than some council members expected. Council member Cody Bronze questioned why repair crews took so long to arrive after the Oct. 3 outage. He said TDX knew linemen were needed to fix the underground fault on Oct. 12, but the crew didn’t arrive until Oct. 18.
“Why did that take so long, and why was a flight not chartered when you had an entire community of people without power?” Bronze asked.
TDX Power Operations Manager Robert Agnelly said the crew was originally scheduled to fly in earlier but got delayed in Bethel due to storm recovery efforts from the ex-Typhoon Halong that hit western Alaska on Oct. 11. Alaska Airlines flies to Adak from Anchorage on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
But Bronze pressed further, asking why the company hadn’t been more proactive. He noted TDX has operated Adak’s power system for years and the poor condition of the infrastructure is well-known.
“Primarily because of funding,” Agnelly responded.
He said he has ideas for adding protections to prevent future failures, but needs to consult with experts to determine if they're viable.
Ampadu said TDX encourages residents and business owners to get generators in case future issues occur.
“No matter how many generators that we do get, there are chances that anomalies could happen or issues could happen with maintenance and repairs. And so we want everyone to be aware and prepared,” she said.
However, Adak residents and council members in Tuesday night’s meeting say that’s unacceptable and are seeking a better solution.
