A power outage that began in Fort Resolution at lunchtime on Saturday was finally resolved at 3am on Sunday, the NWT Power Corporation says.
The outage began at 12:45pm according to Tu Nedhé-Wiilideh MLA Richard Edjericon, who said he had been receiving updates from officials throughout Saturday afternoon.
While many homes were connected again by Saturday night, NTPC said in an 8:30pm statement that staff were still trying to work out why some homes remained without power.
Extra workers had been called into the community to help inspect power lines and establish why, despite there being “sufficient generation capacity available to power the community,” the blackout persisted in places.
“Can you please lessen the power load and unplug any Christmas lights or unplug everything that you don’t need at this time until we get the problem resolved,” the hamlet stated on Facebook in the early evening. A warming shelter was established at the Our Great Elders Facility while the Lakeview Arena was also opened.
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In an update on Sunday morning, the power corporation said “power was restored to the final 17 customers at approximately 3:05am.”
“Trade staff will remain in the community for several hours to continue monitoring stability of the system and to do further testing of equipment,” NTPC stated.
“Further information about what happened will be provided once our investigation is further advanced.”
Edjericon said he had been told by officials that the power first went out because of an issue with a diesel generator in need of an overhaul.
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The temperature in Fort Resolution gradually improved from -28C to -22C over the course of Saturday and the early hours of Sunday.
The community is the second in the NWT to need an emergency warming shelter in the past eight days.
Parts of Fort Smith lost power for seven hours on January 3, an outage the power corporation said was partly the result of running diesel generators for months on end after work to refurbish a hydro plant was delayed by more than a year.
