Power Shortage due to Avalanche

Last week there was an avalanche near Snettisham which is outside of Juneau, 50 miles away or so. There is a hydroelectric plant there with at least 5 towers supporting power lines that go over the mountains and through the woods to supply the power for the city and burough of Juneau. The avalanche took out the towers. In this picture you can see one of the towers still standing on the left near the tree line, just outside the avalanche path.

Since the avalanche, Juneau is not getting any outside power, but has been running on the three back up generators in town, that use 100,000 gallons of diesel fuel a day to give the city power. The city officials have asked everyone to conserve as much power as they can and are considering measures to ask for emergency funding to help get fuel (which isn't cheap nowadays) to run the generators until the towers and power lines can be fixed. The power company is announcing a probable 500% rate increase, which would put us at 50 cents per kwh. They have said that it will take at least 3 weeks for the snow to clear from the avalanche site, and once it is clear they can start repairs, which will take 2 to 3 months. The day after the avalanche happened, we got 7 inches of brand new snow outside our door. Luckily it warmed right back up and its all melting away, and supposed to be in the high forties and low fifties this week. So, we've spent a lot of time this last week with the lights off, as well as all the appliances, but the fridge and fish tank. We're hoping that means the electric bill won't be huge, but we have no idea yet how much they are going to be charging. They have said it is costing over $1 million for running the city's power for 3 days at this point.
So, I wanted to turn the computer on really quick this morning, and post this, so it will let everyone know why there will be a definite drop in the frequency of our posts, and that we'll try to update as more info becomes available. The best place we've found for current information about the power situation is our local newspaper (www.juneauempire.com), since it doesn't seem that we made national news, even though we're the capital of the state! We'll be keeping our fingers crossed, and thanking our lucky stars that we're headed into Spring/Summer, and don't need the lights for the most part!