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It's official - well almost. State of Emergency in Juneau

If you didn't already know, Juneau Alaska is having a huge problem. Our electricity is generated 40 miles south of town at a hydro-electric plant. Yesterday, at about 4:00 AM there was a huge avalanche, over a mile and a half wide. This took down our power and the city is currently running on diesel generators. We don't even have enough fuel in town to keep this up for long, and we are thousands of miles away from a refinery. Everyone is being asked to conserve as much as possible. There is more information in my blog.

The Assembly will hold an Special Assembly Meeting

TONIGHT - Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 5:00 p.m.

in the Assembly Chambers.

The purpose of this meeting is to ratify the City Manager's Declaration

of a Local Disaster Emergency.

The regularly scheduled Assembly Finance Committee previously

scheduled for 5:00 p.m. tonight in the Chambers will take place

immediately following the Special Assembly meeting.

For additional information, please contact

Special Projects Officer Maria Gladziszewski at 586-0218.

Photo by Mike Laudert / Alaska Electric Light & Power Co.

Posted Thursday Apr 17
( 04/17/08 05:12PM ) — Netta Blackwood - REO/BPO Expert

Wow! what is the temperature like there right now and how are the elderly and the newborns coping?

( 04/17/08 05:38PM ) — Ernie & Barb Suto

Oh my gosh!  Our thoughts are with you, is there some type of alternative heating I hope?  Hope something gets accomplished quickly!

( 04/17/08 10:44PM ) — Debbie White

Netta - It's been in the 40's but we received 8 inches of snow last night.  Very unusual for this time of year.  So much for the idea of global warming!  Anyway, at least we are heading towards summer instead of going into winter.  We have daylight almost until 9PM now and in a few months it won't get dark hardly at all.  In the winter, it's cold, dark and windy and this woulld be life threatening.  That would be awful.  The elderly are concerned about money.  People are doing all they can to conserve.  Hopefullyl they will get a shipment of diesel in really soon.  I don't think anybody's going to freeze, but we certainly will be broke!

Ernie & Barb - It's hard to say which heating method we will look at in the future.  Oil furnaces were the way to go forever, but as prices reach $4 per gallong that isn't going to be effective.  Propane isn't the most energy efficient.  Electric always seemed high but our usual 11 cents per kw hour is starting to look pretty good.  Some people have wood stoves but then others complain about air quality.  Many people also have wood pellet stoves.

The scariest part of this is that as fuel prices get higher, freight costs will increase.  This will affect the cost of just about everything.  At this time there are no roads into Juneau and we are far away from any major city.

So, for now, we put on a sweater and some wood sock, and spend more time reading instead of watching TV.

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