A storm that passed through Cumberland House Sunday knocked over trees and fences. (Submitted photo/Shavonne Danielle)

By Angie Rolheiser

Wide Spread Power Outages

Severe weather leads to widespread power outages in the northeast

Jul 8, 2019 | 11:48 AM

Wide spread power outages over Sunday afternoon and early Monday morning had SaskPower crews very busy.

Along with a lengthy outage for costumers in Nipawin and the Cumberland House area after a storm hit Sunday afternoon, Melfort and area also started the day off without power.

SaskPower Spokesperson Joel Cherry said power was off for a large area but he was unsure just how many costumers were affected.

“I can say that in the northeast portion of the province we did have wide spread outages at different times,” Cherry said. “Thankfully, many of them were restored fairly quickly.”

On Monday morning, Melfort, Gronlid, Naicam, Pleasantdale, Star City, Lac Vert, and St. Brieux all lost power due to a substation issue according to Cherry. Power went out just before 5 a.m. and was restored within an hour.

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Weather was the main factor in the Nipawin and Cumberland House.

Severe winds and rain lashed Cumberland House and the deck roof of the local hotel was ripped off. According to Cherry, it was lightning that caused the power issue for Cumberland House.

Trees fell on a line in Nipawin to cause a disruption on Sunday evening.

“We’ve had issues into this morning in the southeast as well in the Estevan area,” Cherry said.

Power has been restored to all areas in the northeast but Cherry said crews in their busy season with severe weather making more appearances.

“Toward the end of June and into July, we have had more extreme weather province-wide that led to outages,” Cherry said.

Cherry said that there are three main groups when it comes to outages such as aging infrastructure, natural factors like birds and animals on lines as well as trees. The third factor is extreme weather.

“We try to make our infrastructure as resilient as possible but when lightning strikes a line, there is not a whole lot you can do about that,” Cherry said.

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angie.rolheiser@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @Angie_Rolheiser