Beausejour state of emergency over

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/10/2012 (4929 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Beausejour is no longer in a state of emergency.

Power was restored to the community east of Winnipeg at about 6 p.m. today.

“I’ve had over 80 texts in the last four hours and now it’s stopped,” Mayor Brad Saluk said from Beausejour town hall. “We were prepared for the worst and we were very fortunate it didn’t happen.”

The end of the crisis means people can stay in their own homes. There had been plans to move as many as 300 elderly into a makeshift emergency evacuation centre set up in the nearby Garson community centre.

“We were ready for the long haul. Our EMO committee did an excellent job getting everything ready,” the mayor said.

The town had declared a state of emergency earlier today after an ice storm overnight downed power lines and mangled at least one hydro tower, turning it into a tangle of ice and steel.

An estimated 5,000 people, including 3,100 in the town of Beausejour, had been without power since the storm hit. The same storm caused widespread damage and power outages throughout southeastern Manitoba.

But as darkness falls in Beausejour, the blackout is over.

Earlier in the day, MTS repair crews restored a tower for communications so the region has phone service, although cell service is reported to be intermittent.