More than 9,000 Oshawa Power customers lost power to their homes or places of business — the most in a single outage event since December 2013’s ice storm. Some 99 per cent had power restored to their homes by next evening, according to the company.
It said crews are wrapping up restoration efforts in the city and travelling to assist neighbouring utilities in bringing power back to families across the Durham Region and the rest of the province.
“We will continue to assess damages that occurred to our grid. By understanding the magnitude of the damage caused by Saturday’s [May 21] storm, we can begin planning solutions to strengthen our grid against future inclement weather events,” said a statement.
“We understand that as our climate changes and weather events increase in frequency, resiliency (strength of our system) and redundancy (backup systems) are keys to keeping the lights on across Oshawa and minimizing restoration times during outage events,” it added.
“With a strong emergency response plan and incredible crews who without hesitation worked around the clock, we were able to restore power quickly to Oshawa. We are incredibly proud of our crews, who now continue to assist neighbouring utilities. We would also like to extend our gratitude to the emergency service and municipal workers who helped keep Oshawa safe during the storm. Last but not least, we thank you, our customers, for your patience and encouragement as we dealt with numerous outages across the city,” said Ivano Labricciosa, President & CEO of Oshawa Power.
Wind speeds during the storm reached upwards of 85kmh as recorded at the Oshawa Executive Airport.
