Hydro One – Update – Crews Still Discovering Significant Damage

(Today’s Northumberland file photo)

Since the start of the devasting ice storm (March 28, 11 p.m.), crews have restored power to more than 89 per cent of customers (up four per cent from the last update yesterday afternoon). This was a unique storm that started on Friday, March 28 and continued into late Sunday and covered a large and wide area of the province. Of the 140,000 customers that are without power at this time, nearly 37,000 are secondary properties such as cottages and trailers.

As restoration work progresses, crews continue to discover significant damage as they access new areas. Given the largely rural service area Hydro One covers, crews are using off-road vehicles to create access roads to repair powerlines that traverse various types of terrain in many locations. To date, crews have identified 1,914 (up 88 from the last update yesterday afternoon) broken poles.

As restoration work is completed in areas, we continue to move crews into the hardest hit areas which remain: Peterborough and the surrounding area, Orillia and the surrounding area and Fenelon Falls. We also have additional utilities providing Hydro One with Mutual Assistance. We thank Algoma Power, Centre Wellington Hydro, Enova Power, New Brunswick Power, Ottawa River Power, Quebec Hydro, Wellington North Power and Westario Power for supporting us and making us now 3,900 strong.

Restoration in the hardest hit areas will continue into the weekend. For remote areas, including customers who can only be reached by water, restoration may take longer. This includes many seasonal properties.

Important safety tips for customers continue to be:

• Turning off the stove or any elements that may have been in use when the power went out along with any other major appliances. We are receiving reports from multiple fire departments that this continues to be a big concern.
• Some areas are also affected by flooding. If flooding occurs at home and water starts to reach electrical outlets, baseboard heaters or furnace, customers should call us at 1-800-434-1235 to have power safely turned off. Do not enter any flooded areas, such as the basement, until power is disconnected.

Customers that have damage to their home’s electrical equipment (ex. stack/pipe where the powerline from the road connects to their home), need to have a licensed electrician make the necessary repairs. Customers can learn more about the steps to take through the Electrical Safety Authority- https://esasafe.com/safety/storm-safety/restoring-power/.

Our team can be reached on our 24/7 media line – 416-345-6868 or at media.relations@hydroone.com. We can also provide images of our crews at work.

Below is the updated regional breakdown by operations centre that includes number of outages and customers restored since the beginning of the storm on Friday, March 28, and the number of active outages and customers without power at this time. These numbers include the additional outages caused by the weather over the last two days.

We have also included the number of seasonal properties affected by outages in each operations centre. These numbers are also included in the number of customers without power column.

Please note these areas do not align with municipal boundaries as they are our broken down by our operations centres. A map of our operations centres’ service area can be found below.

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