Hydro One crews made significant progress yesterday restoring power to more than 112,000 customers affected by severe weather across parts of southern, central and eastern Ontario. Damaging high winds, lightning strikes and the accretion of freezing rain has damaged equipment or caused trees and branches to come down on power lines. As the severe weather is expected to continue in the evening, the company urges customers to remain prepared for additional outages.
“Our highly-skilled crews, damage assessors and support staff have made steady progress restoring power as severe weather continues to damage local infrastructure,” said Chong Kiat Ng, Vice President Distribution, Hydro One. “We understand power outages bring life to a halt, which is why we are continuously improving our storm response while making smart investments in a resilient and reliable electricity system to energize life for families, businesses and communities for years to come.”
While crews continue to restore power to approximately 120,000 customers that remain without power, Hydro One expects some customers in Arnprior, Bancroft, Bracebridge, Cobden, Huntsville, Kingston, Minden, Orleans, Parry Sound, Perth, Picton, Tweed, Vankleek Hill, Walkerton and Winchester will be without power overnight.
The company reminds the public to stay clear of any fallen power lines. If you spot a fallen line, keep at least 10 metres back, even if it does not appear to be live. Report it to 911 and call Hydro One at 1-800-434-1235. If you plan to use a generator, remember to keep it in a dry area outdoors and away from any open windows, doors or vents.
Hydro One has a number of easy to use outage tools available for customers to report power outages and easily access updates when and how they want. Customers can report outages by texting 92887 (WATTS), through the company’s outage map and app, or by calling 1-800-434-1235.
An estimated time of restoration will be determined for each outage once damage has been assessed by our crews. Hydro One’s outage tools are updated every 10 minutes as information comes in from crews on the ground.