SaskPower: power restored after 2 outages in one day

Crews have restored power to several neighbourhoods in east Regina, following two separate power outages Thursday.

2:37 PM: Update: Regina Rural, Pilot Butte, White City, Emerald Park Balgonie, Indian Head, Odessa, Qu'Appelle, Riceton, Vibank, Wilcox, abernathy, Balcarres, Cupar, Dysart, Fort Qu'Appelle, Southey, Lipton, Lemberg. All Poer restored. Thanks for #skoutage 1/2

— SaskPower (@SaskPower) November 22, 2018

Thousands of people living in east Regina along with White City, Emerald Park, Balgonie and surrounding rural areas woke up in the dark Thursday morning. After power was restored before lunchtime, a second widespread outage was confirmed.

12:09 PM: Outage: Regina Rural, Pilot Butte, White City, Emerald Park Balgonie, Indian Head, Odessa, Qu'Appelle, Riceton, Vibank, Wilcox, abernathy, Balcarres, Cupar, Dysart, Fort Qu'Appelle, Southey, Lipton, Lemberg. Status: Crews have been #skoutage 1/2

— SaskPower (@SaskPower) November 22, 2018

“The issue is on the transmission line, the high voltage line that feeds all of those areas,” said Jordan Jackle from SaskPower. “It’s a pretty widespread outage at this point, we do have crews out looking at those lines, spotting for issues.”

Jackle confirmed the frost was the cause of the problem.

Frost build-up on our transmission lines has been causing power outages in and around the Regina and Regina Rural areas last night and today. SaskPower appreciates your patience as we work to restore power as quickly and safely as possible. pic.twitter.com/4CrnSR6jlM

— SaskPower (@SaskPower) November 22, 2018

SaskPower crews also dealt with a massive power outage affecting several neighbourhoods in east Regina Thursday morning including: Windsor Park, Eastgate, Woodland, Grove, Wascana View, Varsity Park, Gardiner Heights, Wood Meadows, Riverbend, East Pointe Estates, Gardiner Park and Greens on Gardiner. The outage stretched east covering Pilot Butte, Emerald Park, White City and Balgonie, Edenwold and Piapot  as well as rural areas around Zehner and Frankslake.

According to the SaskPower map online, the outage stretched from the southeast end of the city along Highway 6, east along Highway 1 to Balgonie and north along Highway 6 as far as Fairy Hill.

Power was restored to most areas in Regina by 8:30 a.m. By 11 a.m., many of the rural areas had power as well.

“The frost caused a lot of issues for us last night, it was building up on trees and power lines and kind of weighing them down, in some cases trees were falling on power lines,” explained Joel Cherry, a media consultant for SaskPower.

In an interview with 980 CJME, Cherry said crews have been working all night to fix power lines.

Crews found one specific line that was damaged in the east end of the city but there may be more.

“We’re still patrolling the lines to see if we can find any further issues,” he said.

In addition to the Regina crews, SaskPower has also called in extra workers from the Moose Jaw area to help get the lights back on.

He noted there was also a power outage in the northwest part of the city overnight, but it was resolved.

Follow @SaskPower on Twitter for updates