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Power outage over

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 02/7/2012 4:50 PM | Comments: 0 (including replies) | Last Modified: 02/7/2012 7:56 PM | Updates

Power was restored to north Winnipeg shortly before 6 p.m., ending a two-hour outage over rush hour, a Manitoba Hydro spokeswoman said.

Manitoba Hydro pulled the plug on power, triggering the outage in North Winnipeg today at rush hour to conduct emergency repairs, a spokeswoman for the utility said Tuesday.

"Unfortunately the clearance came for the outage at rush hour," hydro spokeswoman Anita Mitchell said. "It would not have been our preference to do repair work that late, but to leave it would have been unsafe."

Manitoba Hydro’s emergency coordinator was getting messages out to Winnipeg police about the same time the outage occurred.

The emergency work was necessary after a pole top fire in the vicinity of Hydro’s McPhillips Street station, the second pole top fire in that area in less than a week.

Last Friday, another fire combusted in the cold at the top of a hydro pole.

Pole top fires are not infrequent in winter weather.

The fire Tuesday occurred around 2:30 p.m. and it took an hour and a half to co-ordinate the response.

The impact was felt by thousands of people.

Traffic lights went out at major intersections throughout North Winnipeg at the start of evening rush hour around 4 p.m.

Winnipeg police fanned out to direct traffic manually and they warned motorists to drive with extra caution on account of the power outage.

Line crews were expected to be on the job for an hour or two, mean the outage was to last from about 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Some 7,000 households were plunged in darkness at the same time through the north end.

Intersections along Main Street, from Chief Peguis Trail to Jefferson Avenue were affected. There were also traffic lights reported not working along McGregor Street, McPhillips Street, Henderson Highway and Salter Street, police said.

A Manitoba Hydro spokeswoman said earlier the outage was planned and then corrected the information

History

Updated on Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 5:35 PM CST: Add Hydro comments

6:00 PM: Adds Hydro statement

7:56 PM: Outage over, clarifies

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