Monday was a busy day for Chris Bradley.<\/p>\n
As the weekend\u2019s Taku windstorm calmed, Bradley – of Juneau Glass – was literally picking up the pieces.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had quite a few calls,\u201d he said Monday morning.<\/p>\n
In one case, the wind grabbed a skylight window that had been cracked open. \u201cIt just ripped the whole sash out,\u201d Bradley said. \u201cWe put plywood over it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bradley wasn\u2019t the only person working hard Monday morning. According to the National Weather Service, a gust of 94 mph was recorded at Juneau\u2019s downtown library Friday evening. That was the peak of a windy weekend, but lower gusts caused problems across the city, putting trees into power lines and tipping a shipping container into Gastineau Channel.<\/p>\n
In the Juneau Flats, James Nelson spent Monday morning on his roof, hammering a handful of shingles back into place.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been waiting for the last two days for the wind to calm down a little bit, and I said they\u2019re going on today regardless,\u201d he said by phone. \u201cIt hit here pretty hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
From his roof, Nelson could see three or four other homes in a situation similar to his own.<\/p>\n
Nelson said it\u2019s the first time he\u2019s lost shingles since he moved into the home 12-14 years ago.<\/p>\n
While the Taku (also called \u201cmountain wave\u201d) winds are a regular occurrence in Juneau, \u201cwe really haven\u2019t seen one of this strength in about five years,\u201d said National Weather Service meteorologist Tom Ainsworth.<\/p>\n
Winds peaked Friday evening, and in addition to the high mark at the library, measuring stations across the city saw the effect. At the rock dump, there was a gust of 85 mph. At the federal building, the peak was 79 mph.<\/p>\n
At higher elevations, winds were stronger. Sheep Mountain registered a gust of 119 mph. At Juneau Icefield Camp 18, the peak gust was 109 mph.<\/p>\n
The winds receded somewhat Saturday but resurged Sunday. Douglas Harbor saw a gust of 63 mph. The rock dump had one of 44 mph. At the federal building, the peak wind was a 39 mph gust.<\/p>\n
The old joke is that what Florida calls a hurricane, Alaskans call Tuesday. Ainsworth said the measurements across Juneau were peak gusts, not sustained winds – one of the many differences between a hurricane and what struck Juneau.<\/p>\n
On Monday morning, damage – mostly limited to broken windows, blown objects and torn shingles – appeared light. In downtown Juneau, Heritage Coffee customers were disappointed to learn that the cafe\u2019s kitchen would be closed until Tuesday – a kitchen ventilator had been damaged by the wind, and employees couldn\u2019t use the oven.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Alaska Electric Light and Power reported an outage Out the Road after winds knocked a tree into power lines at Mile 23 Glacier Highway. The outage lasted only two hours, and the power company didn\u2019t report any other widespread outages the rest of the weekend.<\/p>\n
The wind\u2019s biggest effect was on transportation. Alaska Airlines flights were canceled or delayed, and the Alaska Marine Highway canceled its sailings between Juneau and northern Lynn Canal on Friday and Sunday.<\/p>\n
The issue, said ferry system spokesman Jeremy Woodrow, was the heavy freezing spray whipped by the wind. That freezes to smaller ferries\u2019 lifeboats and makes them unusable – a no-no for safe sailing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey wouldn\u2019t be able to deploy those life rafts; that\u2019s the only reason,\u201d Woodrow said. \u201cIt\u2019s not that the ship can\u2019t handle the freezing spray.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ferry Kennicott was expected to arrive in Haines and Skagway on Monday, and a second ferry was scheduled for Tuesday to relieve the backlog.<\/p>\n
Among those delayed by the wind were several Alaska legislators and their staff members, headed south before next week\u2019s start of the legislative session.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re full price-paying customers just like anybody else,\u201d Woodrow said.<\/p>\n
Posts on social media alleged the legislators were getting preferential treatment from the ferry system, but Woodrow denied that.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people think we\u2019re giving priority to Legislative vehicles, and that\u2019s not really the case here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
When the ferry system has to rebook passengers, it gives preference to reservations made farthest in advance.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of these Legislative vehicles were booked months ago,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s leaving some people, like former Empire reporter Lisa Phu, stuck.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, I\u2019m stuck, and other people are stuck too,\u201d she said by phone Monday morning.<\/p>\n
Phu was originally told by the ferry system that she, her 3-month-old son, her husband and their dog would be stuck in Haines until Sunday, Jan. 15.<\/p>\n
Now, they\u2019re on the wait-list for the Tuesday trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I have to be stuck anywhere,\u201d she said by text message, \u201cHaines is a pretty great place to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Monday was a busy day for Chris Bradley. As the weekend\u2019s Taku windstorm calmed, Bradley – of Juneau Glass – was literally picking up the pieces. \u201cWe had quite a few calls,\u201d he said Monday morning. In one case, the wind grabbed a skylight window that had been cracked open. \u201cIt just ripped the whole […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":15378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-15377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15377"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=15377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}