Sorry for the delay!
Our apologies for the delay getting this edition of The Hydro Current to you.
An unparalleled storm tore through Manitoba Oct. 11 to 14 and caused more damage to our system than we’ve ever seen. Extremely high winds and heavy, wet snow caused widespread outages across the province: over 160,000 customers (just over 25% of everyone we deliver electricity to) experienced a power outage at some point during the storm, with many customers experiencing more than one service disruption.
Southern Manitoba, and particularly Winnipeg, saw thousands of damaged trees falling onto distribution lines, causing outages
In cities, the weight of snow on leaves brought tree branches down on countless lines and crossarms. In the rural Manitoba, high winds and ice accumulation whipped lines around, snapped thousands of wood poles, and crumpled dozens of transmission towers.
Manitoba Hydro staff surveying a damaged transmission tower
Help from our friends saw all customers restored by October 25 — just 15 days after the storm left its wake of destruction. For the first time, we invoked our mutual aid agreements with Minnesota Power, SaskPower, and Hydro One in Ontario. These companies sent specialized vehicles, materials, and staff to help our crews get the lights back on. Our thanks go out to all of them!
Crews from Minnesota Power in action in Manitoba
In all, over 1,000 people helped set over 4,000 new poles, string more than 590 miles (950 kilometres) of conductor, and respond to over 266,000 calls for service over a 14-day period. We’re incredibly thankful to our customers, our crews, and our mutual aid partners who came together in this trying time. Although all of our customers are back on, repairs to our transmission system will continue over the next few weeks, as will the work of salvaging and recovering thousands of broken poles, overhead conductor, transformers and other equipment damaged by the storm.
The weather event may have been unparalleled, but so was the support we received.