Savoonga seeks disaster help from state

January 04, 2011|by Rebecca Palsha

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Savoonga is seeking disaster help from the state after a storm caused a power outage that contributed to damage to water systems.

On December 27th ocean salt spray coated the electric equipment, knocking out the power to about 30 homes, affecting more than 100 people.

The request asks the governor to declare a state disaster emergency and provide disaster assistance to the city for emergency response and disaster recovery.

The loss of power also led to frozen and broken water pipes in some homes.

Meera Kohler with the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative says this storm is unprecedented.

"We don't know we've never had this sort of salt build up in the winter I think its building up more in the winter because you have freezing salt spray thats being thats been blown onto equipment."

Kohler says the equipment will have to be power washed, and that might not stop the problem.

"The "C" phase is what we've been having problems with and we haven't been able to find any specific hardware problem theres no wires on the ground theres no broken cross arms theres no broken poles on the ground so we don't really know why it happened the way it did just know so we're learning as we go."

So far costs to cleanup are unknown. That's why the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management sent a team to Savoonga to assess the situation.

"We know there's been damage we're not quite sure of the extent of the damage is we need some technical assistance to help us identify what the damages might be that's what the teams out there to do to asses the damages aproximatel cost and again the impact to the community" says Michael O'Hare Deputy Director of the Alaska Division of Homeland Security.

The team that's on its way to Savoonga ran into some bad weather and got stuck in Nome Tuesday night.

If the governor gives the area a disaster declaration the village will be able to financially recoup its costs from the power outage and the damage that it caused.

About 700 people live in the community on the island in the Bering Sea.

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