5,000 Hydro customers powerless after thunderstorm, pole fires
Manitoba Hydro crews are hopping Saturday, trying to repair damage that caused outages affecting thousands of people in Winnipeg and in western Manitoba.
A tweeted photo of a pole fire on Ainslie Street could be part of the problem affecting hundreds of customers in St. James.
In Harbourview South, a tree fell on a power line, affecting about 1,130 customers. There's no timeline for either of those repairs to be completed.
A pole fire on Polson Avenue in Winnipeg Saturday afternoon cut power to 2,877 customers; as of 5 p.m., most should have it back.
Friday's storm wreaked havoc in western Manitoba. About 4,600 customers in Ninette, Killarney, Baldur, Lena, Neelin, Pilot Mound and Cartwright were affected.
Hydro's not sure when it can fix the damage from winds gusting up to 114 kilometres/hour, which includes three broken poles, numerous trees on lines, one line down and one blown transformer.
Lighting knocked out power to Hartney, Man. late Friday afternoon. It was restored one hour later, only to black out again Saturday.
And in St. Vital, the storm damaged a pole, cutting power to about 1,400 customers. Their lights went back on around 9 a.m. Saturday.
Hydro spokesperson Bruce Owen asks anyone without power to report it at hydro.mb.ca/outage so the utility knows the precise location and how many people are affected. That's the surest way to get the power back on, Owen said.
