Service restored to 75 per cent of customers who lost power
Posted Sep 10, 2019 05:20:01 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Service has been restored to 75 per cent of the customers who lost power during Dorian's visit.
Nova Scotia Power CEO Karen Hutt said those restorations have been completed in just over 48 hours.
At the height of the storm's wrath on Saturday, over 400,000 customers lost their electricity.
“The progress we've made in restoring power to 300,000 customers is a reflection of our early planning, the work of the team and the excellent coordination with our restoration partners,” she said.
The utility said the response is the biggest in Nova Scotia Power history, with workers coming in from as far as Florida.
“Our crews are being reinforced and supported by the hundreds of additional hands through our partners with EMO, the province and the Canadian Armed Forces,” Hutt said. “We're also coordinating with the EMO office closely regarding the restoration of power to municipal water and sewer services, along with communication sites.”
NSP estimates Dorian's hurricane-force winds left around 3,700 trees on lines and broke or pushed over 300 poles.
At the peak of the storm, staff were in a safety stand down, waiting for wind gusts to die down below 90 km/h before they could safely work.
At a news conference Tuesday, Premier Stephen McNeil acknowledged the long hours being put in by those working bring back electricity to homes throughout the province.
“I, for one, am grateful to the men and women in those trucks as they roll through our communities and begin to restore power, and they're doing it in an effective way that we are seeing such a reduction of people without power,” McNeil said.
As of 2 p.m. Tuesday, just over 95,000 customers in Nova Scotia were still waiting for the lights to come back on.
