Kodiak’s emergency responders received reports from around the road system of downed trees, power outages and a roof blown off a house Friday, Feb. 20. That’s after the northeast side of the island was buffeted by winds in excess of 70 mph Thursday night through early Friday morning.
According to the Kodiak Fire Department, the high wind gusts ripped a tin roof off a modular home on Selig Street, near the Kodiak Daily Mirror office, around 1:30 a.m. Friday morning.
Mike Medoff is the deputy chief with the department and was part of the crew that responded to the incident.
"The entire roof itself lifted up, according to the resident, and blew off completely into the neighbor’s house," Medoff said. "So she was sitting there, kind of assumed that her roof was rattling, poked her head out and she saw a portion of her roof sort of jump. So she retreated back into the structure and shortly thereafter she heard a rip of wood.”
No fire occurred and the sole occupant of that residence and her dog were not injured according to Medoff.
North of town in the Monashka area, a large tree fell on a house on Peninsula Drive. According to Bayside Fire Department, there was no visible damage to the structure, and no injuries were reported in that instance. Overall, Fire Chief Scott Ellis said his department received five calls related to wind between Thursday, Feb. 19 and Sunday, Feb. 22.
A structure fire was also reported in Chiniak on Friday in relation to the power outage. Bayside Fire Department, along with one member of the City of Kodiak Fire Department, responded and extinguished the fire before 2 p.m. Friday afternoon.
South of city limits, a total of 76 customers in the community of Chiniak and a few others living on the Pasagshak side of the road system were without power Friday morning according to a Kodiak Electric Association outage map.
The outages also impacted some homes and the spaceport at Narrow Cape, which is known as the Pacific Spaceport Complex-Alaska.
CEO and President of KEA, Dan Menth, said via email that the outages started around midnight Thursday and as of Friday morning, the utility provider had found four broken power poles. As of Friday morning, Menth said the full extent of the damage was unknown.
