Unalaska, AK – The wind storm that knocked over the crane had similar negative effects on the local residential wind-powered electric generators. The storm, which blew at least 125 miles per hour, completely dislodged the helix shaped turbine that was installed on Haystack hill. The blades and shaft blew away and were later located by divers. The tower stayed up. Helix, the company that built the turbine, is sending a new unit to replace the destroyed one. Helix CEO Ian Gardner said they are also sending a wind monitoring system.

"The real problem here was that the customers didn't have a way to monitor wind speed in real time. They didn't realize that they were reaching the upper threshold of the design limit and have the opportunity to shut the unit down," he explained. "Because I believe the original storm forecast were for wind speeds in the 40, 50, 60 mile per hour range, and it ended up being double that."

He said if they know the speeds, they can shut down the unit next time. Gardner said the turbines in Unalaska are providing valuable information about the product.

"For us it's a great opportunity to see what the turbine does in really extreme conditions. At our tech site in San Diego we've had it in sustained winds over 100 miles per hour and not had any problems. So this is the first failure we've seen on the unit in the field. So by providing the monitoring system we'll be able to capture real time data and see as other storms come through Dutch Harbor and the turbine is exposed to those high wind elements, how it really performs."

He said they will not be altering the design to enable the turbines to work at sustained high speeds over 100 miles per hour. "If you get a sustained wind of 125 mph, the cost of designing a turbine that could operate at that level would make it completely uneconomical for any type of customer. So what we've done with the Helix system is design it to operate in the most challenging operating conditions that you could expect to use wind energy for, but there are still limits to that."

The other Helix turbine was located on Nirvana Hill. Its lower blades were damaged but it still operates. Owner Marty Wech said it produced power until he shut it down. That's when the damage occurred. Wech said the company is also sending him parts for free and helping him fix it. He said it's an experiment but he feels it's important to do anything you can to try to help the environment.