Sask. crews still working to restore power after weekend of wild storms
A portion of east-central Saskatchewan is still without power after weekend storms that knocked down power lines, SaskPower says.
“On July 1, there was a very powerful storm that swept through the central part of the province, as far west as Lloydminster to as far east as Nico and sustained some pretty significant damage,” SaskPower spokesperson Scott McGregor told CTV News.
“At the height, we saw about 20,000 customers affected by this by the outages from the storm.”
McGregor said there were still about 2,000 customers without the lights on.
“About 1,400 or so are from one transmission line as a broken structure. We're looking to get that fixed as soon as possible, which will quickly get most of the customers back on, as you know. Hopefully, we'll see some really significant progress by the end of today.”
One of the challenges crews have been working to overcome is the location of the broken transmission line.
“The terrain that the damaged structure is on is very difficult to access. It's actually situated in deep water,” he said. “So for us to be able to conduct a safe and reliable repair to it, we have to analyze a number of different ways we could repair it.”
He said they should know how to get it back up and powered by the end of the day.
“It's too deep for any of our equipment to go into unless it's a boat.”
McGregor said they have brought in crews from other areas to help with the repairs.
“When a transmission line goes down it's like cutting off the Trans Canada when you're trying to drive from Moose Jaw to Regina. That stops it dead right there,” he said.
McGregor also warned residents not to touch power lines or cables that may have been damaged.
“There's a chance that people could still come across a downed power line or a damaged power pole. Maybe a pole is leaning a little too much. If that is the case, it's critical that everyone remains back and [at a] safe distance.”
He recommended anyone who finds a downed power line to contact SaskPower.
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