Rural homes still powerless on Thanksgiving

DOZENS of rural families spent Thanksgiving cozied up to a wood stove or emergency generator -- they still had no electricity five days after a "winter tornado" pummelled parts of southeastern Manitoba.

On Monday, the RM of Stuartburn remained under a state of emergency and officials from the RM of Piney lent generators to families who had spent five days without power. Manitoba Hydro crews were still working to restore power to 150 customers in some of the hardest-hit areas, where last week's storm flattened hydro poles and downed power lines.

At the peak, more than 5,000 people were left without power following Thursday's snowstorm, mainly in the Piney, general south Whiteshell, Falcon Lake and West Hawk Lake areas.

Hydro spokesman Scott Powell said Monday that crews are now focusing on areas such as Vita, Piney and Woodridge, which suffered the most damage. The winter storm broke close to 200 hydro poles in Piney alone, and crews need to put in new poles and restring power lines, he said.

Powell said crews hoped to restore power to most of the remaining powerless customers by the end of Monday.

"We've had a lot of sleep and no turkey this year," said Ron Kuchma, who lives east of Highway 12. "We've had power outages here but (only) for a day or so -- not this long and with so much damage done."

Kuchma said he and his wife live in a wooded area several kilometres away from the main hydro line. He said the storm pushed jack pines on top of power lines, and it has taken time for crews to clear the trees out of the way so they can install new hydro poles.

The Trans-Canada Highway was bare and dry east of Steinbach this weekend, as Manitoba Hydro vehicles and crews moved into the affected areas past the snow-covered countryside. Late Monday afternoon, at least eight Hydro vehicles were working in West Hawk.

RM of Stuartburn Reeve Jim Swidersky said all 12 affected families in his rural municipality have wood stoves or generators and have remained in their homes. He said officials have kept in constant contact with every household that has no electricity, to ensure they have access to food, water and heat.

Officials brought an extra generator on Sunday to a family of 11 who did not have any food, water or working bathrooms, Swidersky said. RM staff explained how to boil water on a propane barbecue and reminded them to plug the septic tank into the generator, he said.

"It's just like a winter tornado went through the area," said Swidersky, noting the state of emergency will likely remain in effect until power is restored to all area homes. "Everybody is at home. Everybody's got generators, they've got a TV on and they're happy. They're just a little stressed out. It's been five days already."

Another 30 to 40 families in the RM of Piney were still in the dark on Monday, said Reeve Duane Boutang. Initially, residents struggled to get around in the deep, heavy snow, Boutang said. Officials went door-to-door once the roads opened to check on residents and found the biggest challenge has been communicating with households without electricity, he said.

Boutang said cellphone service is virtually non-existent in the area, and many land lines were downed by the storm. That made keeping in touch with residents extremely difficult, since it was hard to know whether people needed help or had left their homes to visit relatives over the long weekend, he said.

"It was not easy to communicate," Boutang said. "The stores didn't have power; you couldn't get gas. There were a lot of issues."

The rural municipality encountered the same communication problems last year when 350 people had to leave their homes due to wildfires, he said.

At one point, Boutang said, the entire rural municipality -- about 2,000 people -- did not have power. He said families whose power has been restored have lent their generators to households still waiting for the lines to be fixed.

"It's a long, long time," he said. "It's five days."

jen.skerritt@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 9, 2012 A3