A photo of the Green Lake Dam in 2008. City Utility Director Bryan Bertacchi says a breaker flipped at the facility, causing a brief power outage in Sitka on Wednesday (12/12/18) night. (Photo/KCAW Archives)

UPDATE: 3:00 p.m. (12/13/18)

Sitka experienced an unplanned, city-wide power outage Wednesday night (12/12/18) when a breaker tripped at the Green Lake power plant. The outage began at 5:51 p.m. and lasted less than an hour.

Utility Director Bryan Bertacchi said the city was running on power from Green Lake at the time, but the main breaker tripped when the system detected a failure, causing the outage. The load was shifted back to Blue Lake, and power was fully restored by 6:48 p.m.

The city investigated the cause of the tripped breaker- they inspected the line but found no issues. The root of the problem? A 40-year-old protective device, specifically a relay. Bertacchi says they’ll replace that piece of equipment with a temporary, modern digital relay within the next week.

ORIGINAL REPORT: 7:30 p.m. (12/12/18) 

At 7:18, KCAW received a report from the City and Borough of Sitka that, after a brief city-wide power outage, power has been fully restored.

KCAW News spoke with utility director Bryan Bertacchi, who said that a breaker tripped at the Green Lake power plant, causing a brief power outage across Sitka from around 5:50 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday (12/12/18). Bertacchi said they haven’t yet figured out what caused the breaker to trip. The city is now running power from Blue Lake along with a diesel unit, while they continue to investigate the breaker issue at Green Lake. KCAW News will provide more information as it becomes available. 

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