New system could warn before blackouts, says NWT Power Corporation
People in the Northwest Territories will soon be getting advanced warnings of potential power outages caused by lightning.
Lightning storms often cause of outages
The NWT Power Corporation has said it will issue advisories using a monitoring system from Environment Canada and send warnings to various media outlets.
Bob Kelly, represents the corporation and said this is a good way to get information out to residents.
"Hospitals may want to make sure that their back-up generators are working or emergency services may want to make sure that they got their plans in place and equipment ready in the event there is an outage," he said.
The new system will also provide a heads-up to the company. Kelly said he hopes it will reduce the frequency or duration of power outages.
This initative is part of the corporation's goal to reach a 70 per-cent improvement and reliability of its service by 2015.