Thousands still without power as outages persist in Wellington County
Around 2,300 Hydro One customers were without power late Friday afternoon as hot weather gripped the area
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 has left Wellington County residents without power at a time when temperatures are hovering in the low to high 30s heading into the weekend.
Much of central-southwestern Ontario was under an “orange” level heat warning on Friday.
Some relief from the heat is expected over the next 48 hours, as a rainy forecast calls for a high of 25C on Saturday and 24C on Sunday. Heavy thunderstorms are expected on Saturday, but that could potentially lead to more hydro outages.
Hydro One has blamed numerous outages across the province on severe weather and says its crews are working around the clock to resolve 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 crews have completed 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 is responding with crews and contractors brought in to assist, but could not say how many crews are working.
Repair work is triaged, with the largest and most critical transmission lines being 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 affecting 311 customers near Belwood late Friday afternoon, were listed as “pending classification,” meaning the job hadn’t been started.
The largest remaining outage, affecting 1,833 customers in Guelph/Eramosa, was still being assessed late Friday afternoon without an estimated restoration time.
Restoration timelines across the county, based on damage and crew assessments, ranged between 6 and 10pm on July 3.
Wellington County was hit especially hard, Baccega Rosa said, with many hydro poles downed by the storm.
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.
All Centre Wellington Hydro connections have since been restored, according to Aston, who thanked customers for their patience.
County emergency management manger Linda Dickson told the Advertiser staff are working with the county’s seven municipalities to assist residents affected by power outages.
“The county libraries have been promoted as cooling locations, with branches open during regular operating hours for anyone needing relief from the heat, access to air conditioning, charging stations, or wi-fi,” Dickson said.
Some municipalities opened facilities as cooling centres, or fire stations for water access.
Erin is using Centre 2000 as a cooling centre with water supplies from 9am to 5pm on July 4 and 5.
In Guelph/Eramosa, those needing water can contact the township at 519-856-9596.
For more information on where to find relief from the heat, visit Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health’s Climate Safe Map.
