Some County residents still without power following Saturday night wind storm

UPDATE: More than 300 customers, mostly in South Marysburgh area are still without power Tuesday.

More than 1,000 Prince Edward County residents were still without power Monday, following Saturday night’s wind storm – including 471 in the Wellington area, 328 in South Marysburgh and multiple pockets of service areas affecting less than 20 customers.

Province-wide, more than 490,000 Hydro One customers were in the dark following what the electricity company is calling one of the worst wind storms in recent years. Peak wind gusts at Point Petre were recorded at 130 km/hr.

High winds of more than 100km/h swept across the province late Saturday night causing significan damage and delaying restoration efforts.

Crews have restored power to approximately 410,000 customers but some may be without beyond Monday. Hydro One notes it has put the call out to utility partners for further assistance.

To date, it notes damage has included 250 broken poles and nearly 60 damaged transformers, downed power lines and fallen trees, with these numbers expected to increase. Crews are using helicopters and off-road equipment to make repairs and find damage.

Prince Edward County OPP responded to 49 calls for service – many related to the strong winds, and a series of vehicle collisions.

The East Region OPP noted officers dealt with 773 calls for service – a 47 per cent increase from the normal call volume on a Saturday in December.

The busiest period was from 5 p.m. on Saturday until 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, during which officers responded to 506 calls, roughly double the normal call volume for this same time period.

Top calls for this period included142 traffic hHazards, 53 dangerous conditions, 47 wires down and 28 collisions.

Also, on Saturday 53 motor vehicle collisions occurred between 8-11 a.m. due to some ice rain conditions.

The outage tool on Hydro One’s outage alert map is upated every 10 minutes.