April 20th, 2022 – Cobourg, ON – At 11:45AM, on April 19th, the power went out for 3,000 customers of Lakefront Utilities Inc. (Lakefront), in Cobourg.
The outage was caused by a truck’s elevated boom that made contact with Lakefront’s hydro lines, damaging the 60ft hydro pole on Ontario Street. Recloser R101 and R102 sensed a fault downstream and opened. Operation crews were dispatched immediately after alarms were received through Lakefront’s Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) and SmartMAP software.
Crews assessed the area and began working to restore power to the affected customers. Lakefront safely switched the M2 feeder to the M4, and proceeded with replacing the hydro pole and lines. Power was restored to the majority of customers by 2:00PM. Crews continued to work safely and quickly to fully restore power to all residential and commercial customers by 6:00PM.
“Our team at Lakefront understands how inconvenient power outages are and we thank our customers for their understanding. We continue to invest in local infrastructure to improve upon the reliability of our system. Unfortunately, outages are a reality when faced with unforeseen events, such as yesterday’s accident. Lakefront would like to thank our dedicated crew for replacing the hydro pole and restoring power safely and quickly,” commented Dereck Paul, President and CEO of Lakefront Utilities Inc.
On April 16th, at 8:45PM, Cobourg experienced a brief outage due to animal contact with hydro wires on Ontario Street. Crews were promptly notified and began a patrol of the area, isolating the primary in order to remove the hazard. Power was quickly restored to all customers that were impacted. Lakefront continues to monitor the infrastructure and make further repairs to the damaged switch.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
