Heavy rain and winds gusting to 75 km/h or more drove a day of misery for Fort Smith residents – and power crews – as the town staggered through a series of Saturday outages.
The NWT Power Corporation appeared to report at least eight separate blackouts affecting some or all of the community, beginning at 7am on Saturday and only ending after 2am on Sunday.
Hay River also lost power for up to an hour on Saturday evening, which the power corporation attributed to the effects of the same weather system.
The 52.9 mm recorded on Saturday, at Fort Smith’s Environment Canada weather station made for the seventh-wettest day since the town’s weather records began in 1944 – and the rainiest since August 6, 2014, which holds the all-time record at 75.6 mm.
The day was in the top 50 all-time for wind gusts. The town’s record, set in 1963, is 100 km/h.
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Ironically, the power corporation had been planning a scheduled outage on Sunday for maintenance work. That outage has been postponed indefinitely, NTPC said.
The Pine Crescent and Border Town areas of Fort Smith were particularly hard hit on Saturday, enduring multiple outages.
One resident, describing five separate blackouts at their property, said an initial power surge tripped 12 breakers on their home’s panel. By 8:30pm, they remained sitting in candle light.
“To be fair, the weather here has been absolutely foul all day,” they wrote in an email. “I am quite sure lots of uncontrollable events have occurred. I am also sure that some controllable events occurred.”
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The power corporation said all customers should have had electricity returned by 2:10am on Sunday.
“Thank you for your continued patience and understanding as crews worked through challenging weather conditions. We are hopeful that conditions will improve overnight,” NTPC wrote at the time.
Some rain did continue to fall on Sunday. The wind, while significantly lighter than Saturday’s gusts, persisted.
“We would also like to recognize our crews for their hard work and dedication in challenging conditions,” NTPC stated, “responding to numerous outages and weather-related issues to keep power flowing safely to our customers.”
