According to Hydro One, it may be days, if not weeks, before some customers in rural Eastern Ontario see a recovery in power.
As Hydro Ottawa reported that only 300 customers were still without electricity on Wednesday night, about 5,900 Hydro One customers were still offline as of Thursday morning, according to the company’s website.
The “severity of the damage” from the storm on May 21 means that some customers in the Bancroft region will be without electricity for a few more days, according to the site.
In the Tweed area, “a small number of customers may be without electricity for a few more weeks.” Both areas are in Hastings County, west of Kingston, Ont.
Thousands of households in the area have been without electricity for nearly two weeks. The CBC monitors how long some people have been without electricity.
Hydro One’s assessment did not surprise Karl Stefanski, mayor of Limerick, Hastings County.
Hydro crews are trying to gain access to remote areas with several homes accessible only once or by water, and there is extreme damage, he said.
“In some areas, logging seemed to have taken place. The trees were completely leveled, lying on the ground. It was visible for a kilometer. It was very sad. There was a lot of damage here,” Stefanski said. .
Stefanski believes that “it will take more than two months to rebuild this city”.
The municipality has also dealt with “sighted” people, he said, who are foreigners in the area who come to see the damage.
“Hydro has to dismantle what they are doing, stop on their shoulders, launch these cars. So we have a lot of people who are upset because we ordered the roads to be closed.”
Hydro One deals with “extraordinary” damage
In Bancroft, most of the current outages are also on the outskirts of the municipality, according to Mayor Paul Jenkins. Affected homes are usually seasonal homes, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more property owners live there year-round.
In the last few weeks, “it’s just amazing to see the number of vehicles and the amount of aid that has come to the area,” Jenkins said.
Hydro teams flooded the town of Bancroft after the storm on May 21. (Bancroft City / Facebook)
He said he was disappointed with Hydro One’s recovery forecasts, which some homeowners called unreliable.
“Some of the estimates, you know, they can’t keep, but overall they’ve done an amazing job of getting them back as quickly as possible,” Jenkins said.
“I think it’s just a matter of, you know, a big, big break and an inconvenience for a lot of people.”
All in one day 8:20 Power outages continue in Limerick and Bancroft
Mayors Paul Jenkins of Bancroft and Carl Stefanski of Limerick share up-to-date information on areas that still lack electricity.
Hydro One declined to be interviewed, but in an e-mail statement called the level of damage in the area “exceptional” and hydro crews said it was easier to “count the number of pillars left than those on the ground” as they finished helicopter patrols ”.
In some cases, crews have needed to rebuild entire sections of power lines in “challenging terrain”, which includes drilling a rock to install new poles, the company said.
“We understand how difficult it is to be without electricity and we do everything we can to restore power as quickly and safely as possible,” says its customers’ website.
Add Comment