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Thursday’s double power knockout was caused by lightning

A map shows recent lightning strikes in the NWT as of 11pm on Thursday, with red being the most recent, alongside flames denoting existing wildfires
A map shows recent lightning strikes in the NWT as of 11pm on Thursday, with red being the most recent, alongside flames denoting existing wildfires.

Yellowknife, once the world leader in power outages, received a little reminder on Thursday as the power blipped out twice within an hour.

The evening blackouts were accompanied by a dramatic lightning storm rolling across the city – a storm the NWT’s power corporation, or NTPC, subsequently blamed for the outages.

More: See lightning strikes on the NWT Fire Map

“Yellowknife outages this evening have been caused by lightning strikes,” read a tweet from NTPC posted just before 11pm.

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“NTPC is working to restore and maintain power. We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience and understanding.”

https://twitter.com/adriandbell/status/1025237387293519872

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