Manitoba Hydro expects storm-related power outages to be repaired Saturday

As Manitoba Hydro crews work to restore the last pockets of power following this week’s severe storms, some Winnipeg residents say the prolonged outages left them effectively stranded, unable to safely leave their apartments or charge essential mobility devices.

More than 30,000 Manitoba Hydro customers lost power after powerful storms swept across southern Manitoba Wednesday and Thursday, bringing down trees and power lines. Environment and Climate Change Canada recorded wind gusts of 133 km/h in Brandon, 113 km/h in Souris and 91 km/h in Winnipeg, along with more than 2,900 lightning strikes within 50 kilometres of the city.

In an update posted to social media Saturday morning, Manitoba Hydro said about 500 customers remained without power. The utility said it hoped to restore all remaining storm-related outages later in the day.

“Right now, we’re prioritizing customers that have been out the longest,” the post reads. “The final restoration work will still take time, in part because we’re dealing with small, localized outages and need to travel across a widespread area.”

At 22 Strauss Dr., a Manitoba Housing apartment building in the St. James-Assiniboia neighbourhood, power was out from Wednesday night until about 6:20 p.m. Friday, according to Dave, whose sister lives in the building. Dave didn’t want his last name used.

Dave said many residents are seniors or people with disabilities, and the lack of electricity meant apartments became too hot to occupy as temperatures climbed close to 30 C.

He said his sister, an amputee who relies on an electric wheelchair and receives daily home-care visits, spent much of the outage away from her apartment because of the heat.

“The one concern we had was because her apartment was too hot to occupy,” Dave said. “She was everywhere other than her apartment. This filtered down to the situation that home care could not meet up with her for her daily injections.”

Dave said in a social media post that he was told some residents slept outside or went to nearby businesses, including McDonald’s, to charge their phones and electric wheelchairs while waiting for power to return.

“My post was not necessarily to speed up the process of getting power, but I am a bit shocked that there wasn’t more resources available to these people,” Dave said. “Hydro, I know, was working as hard as possible.”

He said he contacted the area’s city councillor, hoping someone could help provide basic necessities such as water or food to residents. He said he did not receive a response.

“Even if it was a dozen cases of water or … (grabbing) 50 cheeseburgers from McDonald’s, it would just show that people have empathy for others.”

For Debbie, who lives in Windsor Park, the outage left her feeling trapped inside her apartment.

Debbie, who declined to give her last name, said her power went out around 9:18 p.m. on Wednesday and was restored about 16 hours later, at around 1:10 p.m. the following day. While the outage happened overnight, she said the heat became a concern as the day went on.

“I made sure all my blinds were closed, my drapes and everything to keep the sun out,” she said. “There were times I was like, ‘Oh boy.’ But you have to push through it.”

Debbie, who uses a walker, said she could not safely manage the stairs once the building lost power.

The outage also meant she lost much of the food she had recently purchased. Debbie said she had done a large grocery shop two days before the storm and estimated she had to throw out about $200 worth of items, including milk, yogurt, cheese and chicken.

“I might as well have just taken that $200 and thrown it right in the garbage can,” she said.

The outage also left her without a way to charge her phone, something she said was especially concerning because of her heart condition.

She said she would have liked to see more check-ins for residents who may have needed assistance during the outage.

“No one came and checked on us,” she said. “It would have been nice for someone to come and knock on doors and say, ‘Hey, do you need anything?’”

Beyond the immediate challenges of prolonged outages, some residents said they were also frustrated by the lack of information available while waiting for power to return.

Karen Lauze, a St. Vital resident, said she was not directly affected by this week’s storm-related outage, but said she has experienced several outages in recent years and would like to see more detailed updates from Manitoba Hydro.

Lauze said the utility’s online outage map provides information about where outages are happening and the number of affected customers, but often does not explain what caused the outage or provide reliable restoration estimates.

“If you know it’s going to be long because you have to wait for somebody to come and take a tree away before you can even talk about reconnecting, then tell me it’s going to be two days,” she said. “Then I can plan.”

Lauze said she understands the scale of the response after a major storm and saw Manitoba Hydro crews working throughout the city, but believes residents need better communication while restoration efforts are underway.

“I know everybody’s out there. They’re working,” she said. “But the crews out there are reporting back to somebody, and just because it’s a weekend, somebody should be updating that website.”

Manitoba Hydro told the Free Press that it removed estimated restoration times from its online outage map and stopped sending notifications to affected customers during the storm response because smaller outages were too numerous and widespread to provide accurate timelines.

The corporation said the scale of the outage meant the map was not able to keep up with the volume of information coming in.

Now that power has returned, Debbie said she hopes the experience leads to more planning for future outages, especially as extreme weather events become more frequent.

zoe.pierce@freepress.mb.ca