Thousands affected by power outages following storm

WELLINGTON COUNTY – Around 2,300 residents across the county remained without power for more than two sweltering days following a significant July 1 storm.

The weather thwarted Canada Day fireworks planned in Centre Wellington, and in Ottawa, the Snowbirds scrapped plans for a Parliament Hill flyover.

The storm left Wellington County residents without power at a time when temperatures hovered in the low to high 30s heading into the weekend.

Hydro One blamed numerous outages across the province on severe weather and said its crews worked around the clock resolving them.

The largest power distributor across the county, Hydro One covers most of Wellington, with the exception of urban centres in Minto, Wellington North, Centre Wellington and Guelph/Eramosa.

Spokesperson Tiziana Baccega Rosa told the Advertiser last week that crews had completed more than 485,000 service restorations since severe weather downed hydro poles and lines earlier in the week.

“While we know it’s frustrating for customers that are waiting to be restored, the damage from the storm was quite significant in many locations,” Baccega Rosa said.

She added the company responded with crews and contractors brought in to assist, but could not say how many crews were on the road.

Repair work is triaged, with the largest and most critical transmission lines prioritized before crews move downstream to second-stage areas, such as a main street, and third-stage areas, such as local neighbourhoods.

Without upstream repairs completed first, Baccega Rosa explained, there would be no power flowing to individual lines connecting homes.

In some cases, it can take 72 hours before local connections are restored.

“They’re not going to stop until everyone is restored,” Baccega Rosa said of crews.
Some county outages on Hydro One’s map listed a status of “reassessing,” meaning crews found damage to be worse than initially thought.

Other outages, such as one that affected 311 customers near Belwood late last week, were listed as “pending classification,” meaning the job hadn’t been started.

The largest remaining outage late into the afternoon on July 3, affected 1,833 customers in Guelph/Eramosa.

Just outside Brucedale, at least nine hydro poles with critical transmission lines were downed along Wellington Road 124.

Restoration timelines across the county, based on damage and crew assessments, ranged between 6 and 10pm on July 3.

Centre Wellington Hydro operations manager Matthew Aston told the Advertiser there was a “system-wide outage resulting from a loss of supply to our distribution system” on July 1.

“Several localized outages occurred as a result of high winds and storm activity that moved through the area later that afternoon,” Aston added.

He said some Fergus customers experienced “voltage quality issues” on July 2, but crews were able to quickly identify and resolve the problem.

There was one call in Palmerston on Canada Day for wires down, reported to Westario Power by police, according to Westario superintendent Chris Haslam.

“One of our crews attended site and confirmed it was a service line to one resident and repairs [were] made,” Haslam said in an email, adding the utility didn’t experience major outages.

However, Westario crews assisted Hydro One in the following days to restore power to its customers.

County emergency management manger Linda Dickson told the Advertiser staff worked with the county’s seven municipalities to assist affected residents.

County libraries provided access to air conditioning, some municipalities kept local facilities open with extended hours, and fire stations offered water access.

All hydro connections in Wellington County have since been restored.