Copper theft leads to brief power outage for thousands in Halifax area
Outage occurred as remnants of Nicole moved through region
A 10-minute power outage in the Halifax area on Saturday afternoon had nothing to do with a passing storm.
While wind and rain knocked out power to many parts of the province, it was a copper theft at a substation in Spryfield that caused the problem for more than 11,000 customers from Armdale to Sambro.
Nova Scotia Power had to shut off power to the area for a short period to conduct emergency repairs, a Nova Scotia Power spokesperson said in an email.
"Our crews needed to take an outage so they could safely repair equipment as quickly as possible," the email said.
"During this outage, the crew was able to have all materials prepped and ready to be installed to minimize the duration of the outage for customers."
Theft on the increase
There has been an increase in the theft of copper wire from the utility across Nova Scotia in recent months, according to a news release.
To decrease theft, the email said, the utility has been replacing copper with "low value alternatives" and increasing video surveillance.
The utility said police will be notified of the theft.
A similar theft happened in the same area during a storm in 2019.