More snow on top of freezing rain causes more power outages in Ottawa
About 8,000 customers without power in Ottawa as snow continues to fall
Tens of thousands of hydro customers remained without power Wednesday afternoon in Ottawa, nearby eastern Ontario communities and the Outaouais as snow continues to pile up on top of freezing rain.
The majority of the affected customers — about 28,000 of them — are in Hydro One jurisdiction, mainly in rural Ottawa and eastern Ontario. Service for some of them is not expected to be restored until late Wednesday.
Affected areas include:
- Arnprior, with 7,500 customers.
- Bancroft, with 5,000 customers.
- Cobden, with 4,839 customers.
"It is expected that this weather will continue throughout the day causing more damage," Hydro One said in a news release.
Hydro Quebec, meanwhile, reported that about 22,000 customers were without power in the Outaouais on Wednesday morning. By 1 p.m. it was down to about 15,300.
"Yesterday [Tuesday] we had some ice on branches of trees, and the branches that broke touched the grid, so we had some power failures," said Eric Moisan, a Hydro Quebec spokesperson, early Wednesday.
Portrait of a cleanup: snowy, skinny streets, slippery sidewalks and, on top of it, hydro lines down at Gladstone/Lewis. <a href="https://t.co/4MiLfUSOne">pic.twitter.com/4MiLfUSOne</a>
—@amkfoote8,000 without power in Ottawa
Roughly 2,200 Hydro Ottawa customers had no power in pockets across the city as of 6 a.m.
By 10:30 a.m., as snow continued to fall, the number jumped to about 3,800, and by 1 p.m. it had reached about 8,000.
Affected neighbourhoods include the Bay and Somerset Street areas as well as West Carleton, Gloucester-South Nepean, Rideau-Rockcliffe, Cumberland, College and others.
The company said it expected to restore service to the majority of affected customers later Wednesday.
By 4 p.m., there were roughly 100 outages remaining, Hydro Ottawa said, with approximately 4,300 customers still without power. Crews were preparing to work throughout the night to restore power, the power utility said.
Some trees also fell throughout the area.
6 mm of freezing rain
The freezing rain started in Ottawa early Tuesday morning and continued until after 5 p.m. A total of six mm of freezing rain fell at the Ottawa airport, according to Environment Canada.
It had switched to light rain by 6 p.m., which continued until about 10 p.m., when it became light snow. About 13 millimetres of rain fell, and so far about nine centimetres of snow have fallen, Environment Canada reported.
Residential snow plowing began at 7 a.m. Wednesday, and the city estimates it will take more than 12 hours to get those streets cleared.
"Staff continue to plow and salt the arterial road and sidewalks from the overnight snow with wet and slushy conditions throughout the transportation network this morning," wrote Coun. Stephen Blais in an update.
"We have several water ponding issues we are working through and reports of trees down and low lying branches because of the heavy wet snow adding to our challenges today."