The wind caused two boats’ lines to snap during the storm Saturday night ad Sunday morning. Randa Szymanski photo.

A wind storm last weekend toppled a tree on Beach Road and broke lines on boats in Letnikof Cove, sending one boat owner into the frigid and wavy waters to keep her boat from drifting away as the tide came in.

New boat owner Rachel Kukull received a call at work Sunday from the Haines Police department telling her that her boat was beached. Kukull recruited two friends, Betsy Shiner and Gordy Julian, to try and push her 19-foot glasply boat into incoming tide.

“The winds were 40-50 mile per hour gusts. Spray and waves were coming in. We got out and pushed it into the water,” Kukull said. “With the three of us, we couldn’t hold it there because we were being battered by the waves. I desperately swam out to this small floating dock and I just pulled the boat out of the shore and tied it up there.”

Cold water swamped Kukull’s chest waders, and she was only able to swim because she was wearing a life jacket.

Kukull had mistakenly tied her boat too tight to the dock. When the lines snapped during the storm, Haines harbor assistant Mark Allen was able to let the anchor line out.

“I didn’t know in storm that you shouldn’t tie it tight to a dock. When it started to storm, I tied three lines really tight toward the dock. Some old fisherman told me you need to let the line loose. My boat broke all three lines. It was a bad storm on Saturday night.”

Barry Taylor spent the night at Letnikof Cove in his boat the M/V San Simone. “The biggest wind was Sunday morning about 2 a.m.,” Taylor said. “I spent the night on my boat. I got up about every two hours during the night with a flashlight and checked. I broke two lines on my boat.”

Taylor managed to retie lines that had snapped on other boats, and put bumpers in the water between vessels and the dock. “Two had broken their lines,” Taylor said. “They were on the north end of the dock and in the wind. I just pulled the sterns back and put new lines on them.”

Wind downed a tree that fell on a power line on Beach Road, causing residents to lose power for most of the night. The downed tree cut off traffic for several hours. AP&T crews have been working on the site for several days.

Reflecting on the power outage, Beach Road resident Jim Bussey lamented a vote the residents took about two decades ago on whether or not to bury the power lines at an expense of several hundred dollars per resident. Bussey said he voted to install the lines underground, but he was in the minority.

Juneau weather forecasters measured 56-mph gusts at Eldred Rock during the peak of the storm.

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