Town without power as mercury hit -35 C

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This article was published 09/02/2021 (1844 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s enough to give you the shivers.

Never mind the wind chill, much of Boissevain was without power for a few hours early Tuesday as the temperature plunged to almost -35 C.

Judy Swanson, head of Boissevain-Morton’s council, woke up around 4 a.m. to discover her home was chilly. She figured it got down to 16 C by the time the furnace kicked back on.

On its online outage map, Manitoba Hydro said the outage started at about 3:30 a.m., and full power wasn’t restored to the western Manitoba town until around 8:30 a.m.

Swanson and her husband threw another quilt on the bed until the power came on just before 7 a.m., but she said being without heat made her think about people who sleep on the street during winter.

“We often, in the rural areas, we’re very privileged in lots of ways, we have what we need here, but to think that there are people in this world that don’t have that – it gives you food for thought when all of a sudden you don’t have heat and energy in your home,” Swanson said.

None of Boissevain’s 1,600 residents is without a place to sleep, she said.

Meanwhile, Manitoba Hydro cancelled several planned power outages in Winnipeg due to frigid temperatures.

Seven maintenance outages — when power is turned off to allow crews to work on electrical infrastructure — scheduled for this week were delayed due to the weather, Hydro spokesman Bruce Owen said Tuesday.

One now-called-off event Wednesday would have left 68 homes in Winnipeg’s Fort Rouge neighbourhood without power for hours.

Amid the extreme temperatures Winnipeg has experienced this week (Environment Canada noted it at -35 C with the wind chill at the airport Tuesday afternoon), the Crown corporation said it considers the safety of its customers.

“We also consider the safety of our staff working outside for extended periods, and whether the planned work can be rescheduled when it’s safe,” Owen said.

All but one of the seven planned outages were related to work at the Hydro complex at Stafford Street and Grant Avenue.

However, such maintenance work still needs to go ahead — next week, weather permitting — so some homes in the area will be temporarily without power for a few hours.

“The maintenance work is critical and is required so the station operates more efficiently and to reduce any future unplanned, longer outages in the area,” Owen said in an email.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @erik_pindera