Power restored in Point Hope after strong winds prompt overnight outage

Update, 1:30 p.m. Thursday: Power was restored Wednesday evening after strong winds knocked out power to many Point Hope residents early Tuesday.

The North Slope Borough wasn’t able to fly linemen to the village until Wednesday evening due to poor weather, City Mayor Henry Nashookpuk said.

The linemen landed in Point Hope after 5 p.m. and by 7 p.m., the power was back on, residents said.

“We do have full power back, and looks like all businesses are back up and operational,” Nashookpuk said Thursday. “Linemen are going through the town to make sure all wires are still intact and to try and prevent it from happening again.”

School started with a two-hour delay on Thursday.

Original story Wednesday:

Strong winds brought widespread power outages to Point Hope on Tuesday and caused more than 200 people to use shelter services at the local school, city officials said.

The North Slope Borough village of about 780 saw south and southwest winds up to 52 mph with gusts up to 68 mph Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.

“High winds severed multiple power lines resulting in half of the town without power,” said Robert Rex Omnik, city council member and one of the local incident commanders.

The first outage happened at about 7:45 a.m. Tuesday, and the city declared an emergency at about 9 a.m., Omnik said.

The North Slope Borough planned to fly in a lineman to help resolve the outage, according to a report from the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

Poor weather interrupted flight service to the village, City Mayor Henry Nashookpuk said.

“No power and no linemen until the weather breaks a little,” he said. “Could be a day or two before we see a lineman.”

Local authorities — including the city, borough, Native Village of Point Hope and Tikigaq Corp. — opened an emergency shelter at Tikigaq School. They provided rides to the shelter, which offered cots, meals and showers.

More than 220 residents came to the school Tuesday for shelter, food, water or a combination of all three, Omnik said.

School service was canceled on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Point Hope Clinic remained open but the phone lines were not operational.

The local post office, Alaska Commercial Co. store and other entities have been closed for two days due to the outages, Omnik said.

The gas station was without power but the city and Tikigaq Corp. officials were manually pumping gas for residents who rely on generators.

Winds had started dying down as of Wednesday. The air temperature was around 30 degrees on Wednesday afternoon, and was expected to drop to about 20 degrees in the evening and remain in that range on Thursday.

Elsewhere in Northwest Alaska, Kivalina also experienced severe weather this week. Kisimġiugtuq School shifted to remote learning on Tuesday and Wednesday. School officials asked residents to avoid traveling the Kivalina Evacuation and School Site Access Road.