Daily Brew10,000 remain in the dark days after powerful Toronto-area storm
Days after Toronto and surrounding communities were hit with a sudden and very powerful storm, residents are still experiencing intermittent power failures.
Hydro One said on Wednesday that, despite making "significant gains" in its attempt to restore power, pieces of the region remain off the grid.
There are now approximately 10,000 Hydro One customers remaining in the dark. The outages were cause by flooding at two Hydro One power stations during Monday’s storm.
A statement from the company reads:
Over the last thirty six hours, the Company reconfigured its GTA electricity system to restore power to as many people as possible. This involved taking two critical transformer stations offline. While the majority of customers have been restored, the system has not been fully stabilized. In the coming days, Hydro One will continue repair these stations to bring the system back to normal operations.
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Hydro One is Ontario's largest electricity transmission company and provides power to 75 per cent of the province, so a 10,000-customer outage is relatively manageable. Unless you are one of the 10,000, that is.
At its peak Monday night, 300,000 people were without power across the western part of the Greater Toronto Area.
Hydro One stressed the need for people to conserve energy by turning off unnecessary electronic equipment and lighting, as well as minimizing the use of air conditioners.
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The message was a repetition of what Toronto Mayor Rob Ford urged on Tuesday, but it bears repeating. In order to keep the power grid online, the company has been using rolling power outages to lessen the strain. Hydro One says no further rolling blackouts are planned, but the potential still exists.
Meantime, transit service continues to return to normal. The Toronto Transit Commission said that subway service has been restored to part of the city's west end.
An alert confirmed that service resumed between Islington and Jane stations, but service to the westernmost Kipling station remains suspended until electricity can be restored.
The cleanup continues.
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