UPDATE: As of mid-afternoon, power outages continued to create issues for city residents.
Manitoba Hydro tweeted around 2 p.m. that service interruptions were being experienced in south Winnipeg, affecting traffic.
Hydro said “We have a crew responding to a major outage in south Winnipeg. We have a report of a pole fire in the area. If you’re without power, please report it at https://www.hydro.mb.ca/outage/report.jsf Please treat all affected traffic lights as a four-way stop.”
A major overnight power outage had thousands of Winnipeggers waking up in the dark.
Manitoba Hydro said more than 1,700 customers were without power as of 9:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Bruce Owen of Manitoba Hydro said at the peak of the outages, around 15,000 customers in Winnipeg were without power.
Owen said three major overnight outages beginning around 3 a.m. continue to affect transmission lines in South River Heights, Wolseley and the Central Winnipeg area.
“In South River Heights we had a pole fire, so crews had to replace that pole and we also had a line down in the Transcona area”, Owen said.
Hydro said they’re working to repair the damaged equipment that was affecting the neighbourhoods.
A spokesperson from the Winnipeg Humane Society told Global News they had delay the opening of their shelter Wednesday morning and wouldn’t open until 1 p.m. They could also not take in any strays because they could not complete their normal cleaning routine on time.
They asked Winnipeggers to be patient.
Manitoba Hydro expected power to restored later Wednesday morning.