Juneau, in southeastern Alaska, is a long, narrow town of 30,000 situated with mountains behind and with ocean in front. We have our own electrical system using hydropower, generated 30 miles osuth of town. Therein lies the problem.

The terrain between the hydro station and the town proper is steep, in fact, with many cliffs. There are numerous known avalanche chutes. For 30 years however it has gone along fairly well; most of the time power outages have been caused by bald eagles and their wing spans grounding themselves on the lines.

Last week however, there were two massive snow slides that took out at least 5 towers and damaged others. The power company projects that it will take three months to make the repairs. We are now totally on diesel and we have been informed that our cost will go from 11 cents per kwh to perhaps 55 cents. In other words a $30 monthly bill (which was quite common among apartment dwellers) will jump to $150.00. And hta'ts just the start.

Hotels and such will take a tremdous hit. The City of Juneau is Alaska's capital which means that there are many State agencies also. Last night it was apparent in walking around town that many properties and services are buckling down. Many street lights were being left dark, state office buildings were unlit, except for individual floors where the cleaners were working.   The downtown public library has announced that it and another one will close one day a week to save on power.

Have any of you gone through a similar traumatic event?