Manitoba Hydro expects some people will spend Wednesday night in the dark as the provincial Crown corporation continues to restore electricity for at least 15,000 customers in Winnipeg alone.
“We’re doing our best. But in some cases, we’re just not going to be able to get the power on today, and it’s going to be into tomorrow,” Peter Chura, a media spokesperson for Manitoba Hydro, told CBC News on Wednesday.
A slew of strong thunderstorms that rolled through southern Manitoba on Tuesday damaged the power grid in parts of the province, resulting in about 1,000 outages, Manitoba Hydro says.
“It’s certainly all hands on deck here, and then in other regions of the province,” Chura said. “The issue is just, at this point, the sheer number of calls to attend to.”
“This is almost certainly the worst summer storm outage event in recent memory.”
More than 25,000 customers in Manitoba were without power, including around 17,000 in Winnipeg, as of noon Wednesday.
Chura said in an email to CBC News the number of Manitoba customers still in the dark had dropped to 20,000 customers as of 5 p.m. Around 15,000 were in Winnipeg.
In an update posted on social media just before 8 p.m. Wednesday, Manitoba Hydro said it hopes the majority of customers in Winnipeg, Westman, Parkland and Selkirk should have power back later Wednesday evening.
The utility provider anticipates almost all customers will have electricity back by the end of Thursday, but Hydro said the situation is fluid and that more severe weather could affect any restoration estimates.
Donna Hoad, who lives in a condo in Winnipeg’s Heritage Park area, is one of them. Just as she was going to bed, her TV went dark as she lost power at around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Nearly 24 hours after losing electricity, Hoad still doesn’t know how much longer she will have to wait until the power is back.
Storm cleanup continues as city assesses flooding, sewer impacts after major storm
She said the estimated restoration time in Manitoba Hydro’s outage website for her street was around 1 a.m. Wednesday.
“I do understand that hydro is absolutely slammed right now … but it is frustrating,” Hoad said.
“I’ve actually had to spend the day at a family member’s house because of the no power.”
She said at this point, some food in her fridge is already spoiled. And without air conditioning, the temperature inside her condo is likely nearing the upper 20 C range.
“I have no idea … if it’s going to be restored sometime tonight [or] if it’s going to be another night of no power,” Hoad said.
Asked about the cleanup of spoiled food, a spokesperson for the city told CBC there are food waste drop-off stations where residents can take organic waste if it’s packaged in a compostable bag or container.
Power outages left at least five schools in the Winnipeg School Division without electricity, the superintendent said.
At least three schools in the Louis Riel School division were also in the dark, including one where spaces with natural light were used to support classes, an email sent to parents said.
The Forks also lost electricity Wednesday morning, with some businesses closing for the day. A spokesperson for the Winnipeg landmark says hydro was restored shortly after noon.
A spokesperson for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority confirmed there were no service disruptions due to power outages at their hospitals.
CBC didn’t hear back on time for publication from Shared Health about whether there were issues at Health Sciences Centre.
Manitoba Hydro’s outage map shows electricity needed to be restored on a group of streets west of the hospital by Wednesday evening.
Chura said Manitoba Hydro fixes damaged power equipment that will restore electricity to hundreds or thousands of customers at once first, and then crews start working to address smaller outages.
Power has been restored for about 17,000 customers on Wednesday, Manitoba Hydro said.
Crews carry out assessments to determine what parts of the grid should be repaired first, but there were over 400 locations that needed to be checked in Winnipeg alone. In some cases, trees have caused the damage, Chura said.
“We spent the day assessing as many of those,” he said.
Besides the scale of damage from Tuesday’s weather event, crews and equipment were already out in western Manitoba dealing with repairs after earlier thunderstorms. In rural areas, flooding and highway closures might also delay Hydro’s response.
“The crews, the expertise, the equipment are all in place. It’s really just a case of getting to all of these separate outages,” Chura said.
Manitoba Hydro said it has received support from some customers on social media, but Chura said the provincial Crown corporation understands the frustration of others still without electricity.
“It can be difficult to understand where you see what’s happening in the street and not realize that the same thing might be happening in hundreds of other places,” he said.
“It’s going to take time to get to.”
