About 700 London Hydro customers remained without power on Monday morning as crews continued to repair power lines damaged during Saturday’s powerful thunderstorm. As of 7:30 a.m. on Monday, there remained 77 individual outages across London Hydro’s system, most of them small.
“There was a lot of destruction from the storm, so things had to be cleaned up before power could be restored,” said London Hydro spokesperson Nancy Hutton. “They’ve been working around the clock to get power restored to the balance of the customers.”
Hutton said it’s likely that power will be restored to most London Hydro customers by Tuesday Morning.
At the height of the storm on Saturday afternoon, about 32,000 customers were without power. By Sunday evening, that number was down to 1,500.
The storm brought lightning and downpours but it was heavy winds that did the most damage, pulling down trees and damaging power lines.
Hutton said London Hydro and City of London crews worked together around the clock to clear streets of fallen trees and debris and reconnect lines.
“The difficulty has just been getting everything cleared to allow for crews to safely work on the lines to restore power,” she said. “It takes time to remove the debris and get things cleaned up so that the crews can safely work.”
Images of the extensive storm damage were shared on social media from neighbourhoods across London, including Huron Heights, Old East Village and Woodfield.
Hutton said the storm is one of the worst she’s seen.
“I think the biggest issue here was there were a number of very mature trees that were uprooted,” she said. “It blocked streets and just made for a longer time period to clean up the trees and downed power lines, and it was widespread throughout the city.”
You can get the latest information here on London Hydro’s outage map.
The storm caused widespread damage across southern Ontario and Quebec. There were no reports of injuries in London but the storm is being blamed for eight deaths.
The Ontario towns of Uxbridge, north of Toronto, and Clarence-Rockland, east of Ottawa, both declared states of emergency.
Hutton said although much of the damage in London has been cleaned up, people still need to be cautious near large trees because the limbs and branches could have been weakened by the storm. Also, Hutton said people should stay well clear of any downed power lines they see.
“I want to thank Londoners for their patience,” said Hutton. “I know it’s hard to go without power.”
Hutton also said homes that had lines damaged where they connect to the building will have to call an electrician for any necessary repairs and inspections before their homes can be reconnected.
News Credit CBC NEWS