Power still out in Hay River, N.W.T., after second generator-caused outage in 3 days

The Northwest Territories Power Corporation is asking customers in Hay River, N.W.T., to conserve energy as it struggles to repair generators and end an hours long outage for nearly half the community. 

This is the second outage in three days for Hay River.

In it's latest update on its Facebook page, Northwest Territories Power Corporation said it is was working on repairing two of its largest generators, but it does not yet have an estimated time for when the generators will be fixed. It says it plans to move an additional rental generator to the site as soon as possible.

It's asking customers with power to limit their use until power has been restored to all homes.

Around 10 a.m. Friday, the Northwest Territories Power Corporation said it was experiencing "technical difficulties" with a generator. Just after 4 p.m. local time, the corporation said power had been restored to more than half the town, but some areas remain without power. K'atlodeeche First Nation is also without power.

The outage comes after a lengthy power outage on Wednesday, when temperatures outside reached more than 30 C. That day, people were without power for between five and nine hours, depending on where they lived.

Keyna Norwegian, who was visiting the community this week in an effort to escape the smoke hanging over her home of Fort Simpson, said the outages worry her — in part because it was so hot on Wednesday, though Friday was cooler.

"Somebody said it was like plus 40 in their house, and I said, holy crap — there's no escape from that heat," she said. "Their house is hotter than outside. There's nowhere to go to cool off. So that's kind of scary."

She said it's also bad news for business owners.

"They can't do anything without power. So they're losing money," she said 

"It hurts your pockets big time, seven hours without being able to operate — you depend on those seven hours."

Earlier this week, Hay River was taken off Taltson hydro power for a three-week period so the hydro facility could undergo maintenance. The community is being powered by diesel generators in the meantime, which is where the source of both outages has stemmed from.