Nome loses power citywide during storm after generator shuts down with second unit offline

Editor's note: This story was updated Saturday with the Nome Joint Utility System's explanation of the outage and when power returned. An earlier version reported that state offices were releasing employees and that the cause was not yet known.

Nome lost power across the city Friday morning, with a blizzard warning in effect, after one of the utility's generators shut itself down while a second was offline for scheduled maintenance.

The outage began at about 10:55 am, when Generator 15 automatically shut down after a sensor detected a potential high-temperature condition, the Nome Joint Utility System said in a public notice. The shutdown is a protective feature meant to prevent damage to the generator.

Fixing the sensor would have taken longer than bringing the utility's Old Power Plant online, the utility said. With Generator 16 unavailable for scheduled project maintenance, crews had to reconfigure the electrical system and use a black-start generator to get the old plant running. That took longer than a typical restart.

By about 1:30 pm, power was back to City Grids 1 and 2 and the Federal Aviation Administration, and crews were working to restore the North Feeder. The utility said it was still handling isolated outages, mostly from ice building up on power lines during the storm.

State offices in Nome, including the Nome State Office Building, released employees at noon because of the outage, the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities said. Employees who could telework were expected to keep working. Workers who protect Alaskans' health and safety, including some in the Departments of Public Safety, Corrections and Family and Community Services and other 24-hour services, had to stay on the job unless they had approved leave.

The National Weather Service had a blizzard warning in effect for the Southern Seward Peninsula Coast, including Nome, from 4 am Friday to 1 am Saturday. Alaska News reported Friday that a second, weaker storm is expected Sunday into Monday.