Northerners throw out spoiled food as power is slowly restored after storm

Many northern residents who disposed of tainted food owing to wildfire evacuations have had to do it again after a winter storm on the weekend cut the power for days.

Manitoba Hydro says about 750 customers in northern part of the province, after a high of 25,000 across the province, remain without power after a storm on Sunday and Monday dumped snow that pulled down electrical lines or caused tree branches to fall on them.

Leaf Rapids was without power until Tuesday night while Snow Lake was still without hydro on Wednesday afternoon. Both communities evacuated residents for weeks in the summer because of wildfires, which also caused power outages.

Leaf Rapids resident and grocery store manager Ervin Bighetty spent Tuesday emptying out food from his freezer and cooking it on a campfire.

“We ate all of our food at home after putting it on the fire,” Bighetty said on Wednesday, hours after power finally came on.

“If we didn’t cook it, we would have had to throw it out.”

Bighetty said many others in the community were doing the same or throwing out the food, but the grocery store was hit the hardest. Frozen meat and vegetables, fresh meat, and dairy products thawed out or were above the normal refrigerated temperature for more than two days.

“We’re throwing everything out (on Wednesday),” he said. “My staff are cleaning out the freezers in the store, the back freezers, and the floor coolers. All of the food has to go from there.

Bighetty said because he didn’t know when hydro would be restored, he couldn’t place a food order in time for this week.

“It will be next week before we get an order here,” he said.

Bighetty said he and other community members want the town, which has been overseen by a provincially appointed manager since 2019, to have an emergency plan ready before the next incident.

A municipal and northern affairs spokesman said the town is updating its emergency management plan.

As well, the spokesman said a temporary generator was installed at the town’s water plant, enabling water service to re-start on Tuesday while the outage was ongoing. The province is in the process of buying and installing a long-term backup power system.

Hydro spokesman Peter Chura said hydro crews are doing everything they can to restore power to people who lost power because of the storm.

“Snow Lake was still without power this morning,” Chura said. “Poor road conditions on Tuesday significantly slowed restoration efforts. Roads are now clear and an additional two construction crews have arrived to assist with restoration work.”

Chura said Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, which declared a state of emergency on Tuesday after its 3,000 residents were still without electricity, had only about 10 customers without hydro by Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, rail travel between The Pas and Churchill is slated to begin again Thursday.

Arctic Gateway Group president and CEO Chris Avery said in a statement employees have “worked diligently” to reopen the section of line closed by the weekend storm.

Avery said a freight train scheduled to depart from The Pas and head to Churchill on Thursday will arrive 24 hours later than originally scheduled.

Debris and fallen trees must be removed from the Flin Flon subdivision before it is expected to reopen on Friday.

“Because this railway is locally owned by the communities it serves, we know how important it is that service is restored as quickly as possible following extreme weather events. We will continue to act fast to make sure this critical piece of infrastructure stays strong and reliable for the communities that depend on it,” he said.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca