Extreme cold, equipment failure blamed for Dawson City power outage

Yukon Energy says a power outage in Dawson City, Yukon, on Thursday night was related to equipment failure in the extreme cold temperatures.

Hundreds of residents were plunged into darkness late Thursday afternoon, when the temperature was around –44 C. Some residents were without power for several hours, and some didn't see power restored until Friday morning.

Yukon Energy president Andrew Hall said it was an unusual occurrence, and he's not sure how it could have been avoided.  

"I've been here eight years, I can't recall having a kind of outage like this," he said.

Hall blames the frigid temperatures. Most of Yukon has been under an extreme cold weather warning all week, and Dawson City has not seen the temperature go above –40 C since Saturday.

The company said on Thursday that the outage was due to a downed power line. Hall said power lines become very brittle in the cold.

"Metals contract when they're very cold. So we had shrinkage on one of the key distribution lines in town and there was a failure on one of the poles — where basically the conductor wasn't able to conduct electricity anymore," Hall said on Friday.

The company sent crews from Mayo, Yukon, to help with restoration on Thursday night. Meantime, the town opened the arena and the Robert Service School to serve as temporary shelters.

RCMP and the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin government were offering rides to people who needed them.

"It was somewhat worrisome," said Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin chief Roberta Joseph, on Friday. Her home never lost power, but she was particularly concerned about elders.

"Our staff were going door-to-door, with Search and Rescue and [Canadian] Rangers, and just checking on everybody," Jospeh said.

"I think that we have a pretty amazing community. When something happens, we all join together and ensure that everybody's safe." 

By about 11:30 p.m. on Thursday, Yukon Energy said repairs were complete and that the restoration process had begun. However, due to the cold weather, it was restoring power in small sections.

As power came back on, officials asked residents to only use what electricity they needed.

"When you bring back power you get this massive load suddenly all at once," Hall said.

"So you have to, what's called sectionalize it — break it up into little pieces and energize each piece at a time. And that process can take a while."

Questions for Yukon Energy, mayor says

Dawson City Mayor Bill Kendrick says he's happy that nothing tragic seemed to have happened during the power outage, despite the extreme and potentially dangerous conditions. He's also grateful for how the community pulled together to ensure people were safe.

Still, he has questions for Yukon Energy. He thinks things could have gone more smoothly, especially when it came to communications. 

"I think we're going to have a good look at how it was handled and ways it could be improved, should this happen again." Kendrick said on Friday.

"Obviously we're all happy that the power's back on right now. But there seems to be different messages going out and not really a clear way to get that message out to people who don't have any power."

It's worth exploring other ways of reaching people, he said. 

"There's an old basic one where you drive around the street with a megaphone on a vehicle, and you talk to people directly that might be hunkered down in their house," Kendrick said.

"That wasn't something that was done last night."

This is the second time Yukon Energy has been caught out by the extreme cold this week.

President Andrew Hall said earlier this week that an hours-long blackout in Whitehorse Monday evening, when the temperature was -38 C, was caused by unexpected power demand. 

People in Pelly Crossing were also without power for several hours Tuesday, in temperatures of - 50 C. 

Atco Electric sent Whitehorse-based crews to the community to fix a failed breaker.