UPDATE: 4 p.m., Wednesday, April 5
Thousands of Hydro customers in our region are still without power amidst a freezing rain storm.
Hydro One’s Tiziana Baccega-Rosa says a combination of high winds, lightning strikes, and the buildup of freezing rain continues to down power infrastructure.
“The high winds are anticipated to continue into this evening,” says Baccega-Rosa. “So we’re not out of it quite yet but crews will continue to work as long as it’s safe. Generally, overnight they’re responding to 911 emergency calls and then they’re out back in full force in the morning, when there’s light.”
Hydro One’s Stormcentre website was reporting dozens of outages throughout Renfrew and Hastings counties Wednesday afternoon.
While it’s too early to say when the storm conditions and outages will stop, Baccega-Rosa says not to panic if you see an estimated time of restoration several days away for your service area.
“That is currently the longest estimated time of restoration, which doesn’t mean everybody will be restored at that time,” says Baccega-Rosa. “People will be restored leading up to that time, it’s just that is the longest one. That’s because we have water-access customers, seasonal properties. There’s no one in there.”
She adds to stay at least 10 metres away from any downed power lines, even if they do not appear to be live. You can check estimated times at Hydro’s outage map.
12 noon, Wednesday, April 5
Thousands of Hydro customers in Southern and Eastern Ontario are without power amidst a freezing rain storm.
Hydro One’s Tiziana Baccega-Rosa says outages are expected to continue throughout the day, as extreme weather continues to batter the area.
“As the high winds and freezing rain come through, they are causing tree limbs to make contact with our equipment,” says Baccega-Rosa. “That being said, we have our team out in full force making repairs, so as we see new outages being reported customers are being restored.”
Around 1,400 Hydro customers in Haliburton were without power this morning. By noon, Hydro One Stormcentre website was only reporting a handfull of small outages in the Bancroft-to-Barry’s Bay region.
While it’s too early to say when the storm conditions and outages will stop, Baccega-Rosa says not to panic if you see an estimated time of restoration several days away for your service area.
“That is currently the longest estimated time of restoration, which doesn’t mean everybody will be restored at that time,” says Baccega-Rosa. “People will be restored leading up to that time, it’s just that is the longest one. That’s because we have water-access customers, seasonal properties. There’s no one in there.”
She adds to stay at least 10 metres away from any downed power lines, even if they do not appear to be live.
You can check estimated times at Hydro’s outage map.