5,000 Hydro customers powerless after thunderstorm, pole fires
Crews racing to fix damage in Winnipeg, 17 other communities
Manitoba Hydro crews are hopping Saturday, trying to repair damage that caused outages affecting thousands of people in Winnipeg and in western Manitoba.
<a href="https://twitter.com/manitobahydro">@manitobahydro</a> So this happened about 45 minutes ago on Ainsley in St. James. Power off as far away as Mount Royal or more. <a href="https://t.co/sGb0JClymm">pic.twitter.com/sGb0JClymm</a>
—@MikeVidruk<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/mboutage?src=hash">#mboutage</a> Outage in River East appears to be a fallen tree on a power line. Crew is on scene. ETR is approx. 6 p.m. <a href="https://t.co/KV7jhtsInZ">https://t.co/KV7jhtsInZ</a>
—@manitobahydroA 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.
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.