SaskPower says it has restored power to the southeast portion of the province.
Transmission lines are back in service, although SaskPower says there are some areas that might not be in service. Those without power are asked to contact the outage centre at 310-2220.
Earlier in the night, SaskPower said it had restored power to most residential customers across the province, however crews were currently working to restore power to Carnduff and Oxbow areas.
The Crown corporation says the ice and frost situation has not improved, and so the system is still in a delicate position. High winds forecast overnight could help or hinder efforts by shaking frost off the lines, or causing lines to bang together, which could cause further outages.
In a tweet issued just after 6 p.m. on Tuesday night, the Crown corporation said restoration efforts will continue throughout the evening. Updates will be provided as information becomes available.
Power was knocked out to many areas of the province on Tuesday morning after units at the Boundary Dam, Shand and Poplar River Power Stations tripped off and they lost generation.
“We are bringing those units back on line as quickly and safely as possible,” SaskPower said in a news release.
Estevan was among the communities to lose power at around 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning but the lights in the city were back on at around 9:30 a.m. But other southeast communities have been without electricity since 9 a.m.
Much of Regina was also without power for most of the day on Tuesday.
SaskPower says it has suffered significant issues because of frost over the past few days. The Crown corporation is working to assess the situation and make repairs. The frost is causing lines to fall and sag. People are asked to please be safe and stay at least 10 meters away, and to not try to remove frost from the lines.
SaskPower says it received more than 33,000 calls in the outage centre Tuesday morning. That’s equal to all the calls we took in November.
“We have hundreds of people across the province working hard to restore power to our customers,” SaskPower said.
High winds are forecast in some areas of the province this evening and overnight, which SaskPower said could complicate efforts to restore power.
The wnds affected the ice making preparations at the Home Hardware Canada Cup.
Teams were supposed to practice Tuesday evening on the sheets of ice but Curling Canada called them off because the power failure came at a key point in the process, according to Al Cameron, director of communications for Curling Canada. Power came back on after about 20 minutes but the ice preparations were set back.
Cameron said the power outage occurred in the middle of a flood and the water hadn't frozen evenly. They have to start all over again to get the ice just right and they are still confident the ice will be good to go for Wednesday, pending any other power outages.
"We've got two of the best icemakers on the job now," Cameron said.
The Mercury will have more details as they become available.
