Update: Crews have completed restoring power to the last of the 158,000 customers who lost service during the severe windstorm that raged across Nova Scotia over Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
Power was restored to five customers on Big Tancook Island and one customer on Little Tancook Island. Crews accessed the islands via helicopter yesterday (THURSDAY) to assess damages and returned first thing this morning to make the repairs.
Additionally, this afternoon, crews completed reconstruction of a section of the electrical system along Pleasant Street in Dartmouth, where extreme winds on Dec. 25 brought down 10 poles, along with the lines and equipment mounted on those poles. This completes restoration of customers who lost power in the Christmas Day / Boxing Day storm, other than customers with damaged electrical equipment who must have an electrician complete repairs before power can safely be restored.
At 2:00 PM, Nova Scotia Power de-activated its Emergency Operations Centre, which opened at 10 AM on December 25 to coordinate storm response. Power crews continue to do regular work restoring outages that have occurred since the storm. Customers seeking estimated restoration times for those outages can find up-to-date information at outagemap.nspower.ca or by calling 1877-428-6004.
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Power has been restored to all but a handful of the 158,000 customers across Nova Scotia affected by a severe storm with wind gusts over 100 km/hour that began Christmas Day and continued into Boxing Day.
Please note there have been subsequent outages since the Christmas Day/Boxing Day storm ended that also appear on our outage map. The remaining customers affected by this week’s storm that have not been restored include a small number of customers in remote, hard to access locations such as Tancook Island, seasonal customers who agreed to low priority restoration status, and customers with damage to their electrical system which requires repairs. Nova Scotia Power cannot restore power to customers who sustained damage to their electrical equipment until it is fixed.
For example, if a customer’s meter mast is damaged, a certified electrician needs to make repairs before power can safely be restored. Nova Scotia Power is helping connect those customers with electricians. A list of electricians who are prepared to help can be found at www.nspower.ca/electricians. Over the past few days, Nova Scotia Power has contacted all affected customers to provide updated information on estimated restoration times and offer those customers assistance. The utility and its contractors continue to work around the clock to complete restoration to all customers.
Restoration for all customers without power will be completed today (FRIDAY). The high number of damaged sites and hard to access locations has created the biggest challenge for restoration crews this week, which at one point totaled over 1200 sites across the province. Damage from the storm at these locations was extensive such as multiple trees on multiple spans of line, requiring a number of repairs before power could be safely restored. Nova Scotia Power thanks customers for their continued patience throughout this restoration effort. The most up to date information on estimate restoration times can be found at outagemap.nspower.ca or by calling 1-877-428-6004.
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Source: Media Release