Alaska village regains power after outage lasting a month

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Friday, September 25th, 2020 6:28am

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Bethel, Alaska. Photo courtesy of Bethel Chamber of Commerce.

BETHEL, Alaska (AP) — An Alaska village has regained electrical power after a month-long outage during which some families lost subsistence harvests stored in freezers.

KYUK-AM reported Newtok’s backup generator gave out in late August and that power was not restored until Sept. 21.

The backup failure happened three years after the main generator stopped working in the village west of Bethel populated by members of the Yupik Alaska Native tribe.

Tribal Administrator Andrew John said short, intermittent outages are expected as testing of the system is completed.

The tribe plans to provide residents with $500 vouchers for the local store and $1,000 in power credits.

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