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Widespread power outages in Alberta Sunday as thousands affected

Click to play video: 'Power largely restored in Alberta after lightning strike'
Power largely restored in Alberta after lightning strike
WATCH: Power largely restored in Alberta after lightning strike – Jun 7, 2020

Many parts of Alberta were without power Sunday afternoon, leaving thousands in the dark as multiple agencies reported outages shortly after 3 p.m.

FortisAlberta, an electricity distribution utility that supplies power to numerous companies in the province, tweeted Sunday that it was aware of an outage due to a “loss of a tie line from B.C.”

Alana Antonelli, a spokesperson for FortisAlberta, told Global News the company was working with Alta Link, which is a transmission provider, and Alberta Electric System Operator to get the power back.

“Right now, it’s beyond our control,” Antonelli said. “We will do what we can as we get more information to get the power back on,”

Fortis Alberta serves 60 per cent of the province, including major and rural centres, Antonelli said.

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Many areas across the province reported power outages online, including in Edmonton, Calgary and Lethbridge.

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EPCOR said approximately 25,000 customers in the Edmonton area were without power due to the issue.

Shortly after 4:30 p.m., the agency confirmed power was restored to all Edmonton customers.

ENMAX told Global News that in Calgary, there were “pockets” of outages and it did not appear to be affecting the entire city.

It confirmed that 40,000 customers in Calgary were affected by the outage.

Shortly after 4 p.m., a spokesperson for ENMAX said it had restored power to 13,700 customers and was hoping to have the rest restored within the hour.

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By 4:30, it said all its customers now had power restored.

Lethbridge also confirmed Sunday that there was an outage in that area.

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Red Deer also reported an outage shortly after 3 p.m. but said shortly before 4 p.m. power had since been restored to all areas.

Just before 4 p.m., the City of Red Deer indicated on Twitter that power had been restored.

According to a tweet from Fortis, a lightning strike in B.C. was to blame for the issues.

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