Ice storm sparked 111 power outages across city
The cold snap and freezing rain mid-week had Alectra hot on the trail of more than 110 power outages in St. Catharines.
“It was all hands on deck. We called contract workers just to maximize the people we had working in order to get everybody up and running as quick as possible,” said Alectra spokeswoman Rachel Bertone Friday.
Bertone said there were 22 weather-related outages from Wednesday into Thursday in St. Catharines that involved freezing rain accumulation on the lines.
Another 89 outages were mostly due to trees coming in contact with the lines from limbs or trucks falling, as well as cars hitting polls.
“In St. Catharines and Hamilton with the more mature trees and the heavily wooded areas and with the amount of overhead lines, when we do get any freezing rain and accumulation that is always the reason for these outages,” she said.
At the peak of the storm at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday there were 4,600 customers out. By 5:30 p.m. it had been reduced to half with 1,428 without power.
There were about 1,000 customers out until the morning.
Bertone said the numerous outages that don’t stem from an equipment failure but from factors out of Alectra’s control are a key piece to explaining the reason why power outages can last so long or happen so frequently during an ice storm. The company is still responsible for cleaning up those scenes and getting customers back on line.
Bertone said restoring power when trees fall on lines is not just a click of a switch. An arborist has to remove the tree and Alectra has to generate each customer individually.
People sometimes wonder why the power is not back on as soon as the storm has stopped.
“They have to tackle it on an individual house basis simply because of the nature of the trees coming into contact with the lines. It is dangerous.”
Alectra had crews resting and on rotation so they were able to work through the night.
They were ready to tackle whatever the wind storm brought on Friday but warmer temperatures melted the ice off the trees and there weren’t any significant incidents.
When there is a storm, Bertone said residents should stay 10 metres away from a downed power line and if they see crews working to give them space to do their jobs.