Tens of thousands of Saskatchewan residents were without power after a massive unplanned outage. The province has confirmed that Boundary Dam, Shand and Poplar River, all of Saskatchewan's coal powered generating stations, were offline and required work to be restarted.
SaskPower said all power had been restored to Regina as of 5:30 p.m. and to all residential customers province wide by 10 p.m. Any rural customers still without power are asked to contact SaskPower's Outage Centre.
5:32 PM: Repairs have been completed and power restored in the City of Regina. Thank you for your patience. #skoutage
— SaskPower (@SaskPower) December 4, 2018
Jordan Jackle from SaskPower says they have hundreds of employees working to fix the situation, but they still don't know what caused the outage.
Jackle also said that the only way to fix the frost buildup on the lines is a sunny day.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority says facilities in Regina were running on backup power throughout the day. Power was restored to Regina's hospitals by Tuesday afternoon.
Some elective surgeries were postponed due to the outage.
The Moose Jaw hospital ran on backup power and had CT scans available. Estevan and Swift Current both had CT scans running as well. Yorkton wasn't running CT scans on Tuesday. The SHA said doctors were using other diagnostic techniques until the scans are available.
The outages forced a number of businesses to temporarily close their doors, and the city cancelled the annual Light the Lights event.
Regina Public Schools said students at schools without power were sent home. Parents needed to either pick up their students or give the schools permission to release them. Schools stayed open for any students who aren’t able to go home. Regina Catholic Schools also sent home students at schools without power.
We are unable to update our website because our server is down. We are working on releasing students at all of our schools without power. Please follow directions as they come from your school.
— YQR Catholic Schools (@RCSD_No81) December 4, 2018
The University of Regina says it has cancelled all day and night classes on Tuesday due to the outage.
Update: Due to power outage, all day and evening classes are cancelled and offices closed effective immediately at main campus (Regina) and College Avenue Campus. Watch official U of R Twitter account and https://t.co/NoiRQCu6uz for updates.
— University of Regina (@UofRegina) December 4, 2018
City recreation facilities in Moose Jaw are closed and traffic lights aren't working.
Drivers who encounter an intersection where the lights are out should treat it as a four-way stop.
Residents are being reminded not to use gas generators, camping stoves or barbecues indoors. SaskEnergy is also asking customers without power to turn down their thermostats to help limit overdrawing the system when power is restored.
The city is also asking residents to conserve water during the outage.
Anyone who sees a downed powerline should call SaskPower and not approach it.
