As predicted, a storm that swept east from B.C. Wednesday brought heavy rains, damaging winds and knocked out power to thousands of Albertans.
As of 7:30 a.m. Thursday, Fortis Alberta said 4,300 people were still without power, the majority of whom are in the Lacombe area.
“We are working with AltaLink to get these customers back on as quickly as we can do so safely,” spokesperson Alana Antonelli said.
AltaLink had crews on site repairing a transmission line and power was restored to customers in the Lacombe area by about 11:10 a.m. Thursday.
READ MORE: Capital Region slammed by strong winds, heavy rain during Wednesday storm
Fortis Alberta said, at the height of the storm, about 44,500 customers were without power, primarily in the areas surrounding Edmonton, Red Deer, Strathmore, and in multiple pockets in central and northern Alberta.
As of 9:30 p.m., more than 17,000 Fortis Alberta customers were still without power. Of those, 10,000 were expected to remain off overnight before crews could safely make repairs to damaged lines. The company said it expected to restore all service by 4 p.m. Thursday.
READ MORE: Southern Alberta communities cleaning up after Wednesday wind storm
“In times of major storm events like this, we’re able to quickly pull resources from other service points from across the province to join in the restoration efforts,” said Cam Aplin, Fortis Alberta’s vice-president of operations. “So far, crews have done a great job of battling the elements, keeping themselves and the public safe and restoring power to as many customers as possible.”
Fortis Alberta deployed more than 300 technicians to make repairs and restore power.
EPCOR, the company that handles power within the city of Edmonton, estimated 22,000 customers may have suffered outages during Wednesday’s storm. The outages were not all at the same time and were of various durations.
As of 8 a.m. Thursday, all primary circuits in Edmonton were restored, EPCOR spokesperson Tim le Riche said. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone has power. Le Riche explained there were still secondary lines all over the city that were down. Those secondary lines supply places like homes and businesses, rather than the primary lines that supply entire neighbourhoods.
“We will work throughout the day to restore all power,” le Riche said Thursday morning.
He said crews were working hard to restore power, but that safety and fatigue management is a priority.
“We have a number of crews, as many as available, out there working,” he said Wednesday evening. “In addition to that, we have a number that are resting. We know we are going to be working through the evening. Once we reach the point where we realize those crews that are out in the field are starting to get tired, they come in and we send out a fresh batch.”
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Le Riche said an outage in the southeast corner of the city was proving difficult to repair. He estimated the outage there would last until early Thursday morning.
“A cubicle has faulted. That basically means that it burned inside. Electricity is heat energy so all the equipment inside the cube burned and the entire cube has to be replaced.”
Global Edmonton meteorologist Jesse Beyer said wind gusts as high as 107 km/h were reported in Edmonton and parts of the city saw rainfall totals of 40 millimetres by 6 p.m. Edmonton.
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