A power outage forced the closure of the offices of the departments of Labor & Workforce Development and Fish & Game buildings for several hours Thursday morning. A bad cable termination caused a partial outage at the West Eighth Street facilities a little after 9 a.m., Debbie Ferreira, spokesperson for Alaska Electric Light & Power said.
An AEL&P line crew identified the problem and cut power to the building to make repairs, Ferreira said. They restored power by 11:01 a.m.
Lights and computers were offline in the building, said Beth Leschper, spokesperson for the Department of Labor.
“Our staff couldn’t function,” Leschper said, “so we released them while the power was being repaired.” An alert on the state of Alaska’s website directed released employees to report back to work at 11:15am.
AEL&P’s Ferreira said the outage also affected the Juneau Hotel and Cycle Alaska for about half an hour as the crew de-energized the line to perform repairs.
• Contact reporter Russell Stigall at 523-2276 or at russell.stigall@juneauempire.com.
Comments (3)
Add commentWow...
Are we going to have an article in the paper every time a State of Alaska building has a power outtage? Or is this article because the staff, which spends most of it's time working on computers, could not do their jobs; therefore, someone had the courtesy to let them leave for a short duration?
Good decission in my opinion... It would be nice if other departments would follow this lead.
your second question is correct Wren
99% of state work is done on computers. The building had no power or lights for a window of time. Yes, it was a good decision. Much better than standing out in the cold or sitting around in the dark.
This happens at least twice a
This happens at least twice a year in Juneau...why is this news worthy?