Heavy winds causing damage to power lines led to hundreds being left without power throughout the Athabasca area June 11-12.
Trees uprooted due to winds caused damage to power lines, resulting in 2,000 people in the Athabasca County area being left without power at some point over the two days, according to FortisAlberta customer experience and cxommunications manager Alana Antonelli. This includes 277 customers being left without power within the Town of Athabasca after a tree fell onto a power line June 11, Antonelli said.
"When the wind really started to pick up, we began to see multiple outages in the northern part of our service territory with hardest hit areas both northeast and northwest of Edmonton," Antonelli said in an email. "This included the Athabasca County area. Most of these outages were a result of trees being uprooted and landing on our power lines."
Approximately 4,000 customers FortisAlberta customers were left without power north of Edmonton, Antonelli said. The company had 200 people working on repairs, but some customers were left without power overnight June 11, Antonelli said.
"Due to extensive damage and the repairs required, we did have some customers off overnight. We worked through the repairs the following day and had everyone back on by Tuesday night," she said.
Within Athabasca County specifically, there was significant damage with downed power lines, Antonelli said.
"We sustained significant damage with downed wire and broken cross arms. Due to the amount of rain we saw prior to and during the windstorm, accessibility was limited in some cases," she said.
The power outages within Athabasca County affecting 2,000 people occurred at various different times and had different restoration times depending on the work that needed to be done, Antonelli said.
The power outage within the Town of Athabasca began just after 2 p.m. June 11 and was restored by 5:45 p.m., Antonelli said.
The tree that fell down to hit the power line was owned by the Town of Athabasca, according to town chief administrative officer Robert Jorgensen. The town assumed no responsibility outside of removing the tree and cleaning it up, he said in an email.
Wind speeds reached a maximum of 66 km/h in Athabasca June 11 and 50 km/h June 12, according to weather data from the Government of Canada website.
