A loud bang and ringing echo lingered in downtown Haines on Thursday morning just before 8 a.m. A puff of smoke floating away from the stacks at the Alaska Power & Telephone power plant was the only indicator that something had gone awry at the facility. 

Later that day, workers went up in a lift and peered down into one of the three stacks. 

“We have an engine that has been under repair and in…

Rashah McChesney is a multimedia journalist and editor who has reported and edited newsrooms from the Deep South to the Midwest to Alaska. For the past decade, she has worked in collaborative news as the...