Hydro Continues Task Of Restoring Power

We're well into the second day of dealing with the widespread power outage in southern Manitoba.

Manitoba Hydro Public Affairs Officer Bruce Owen says while their focus remains bringing Portage fully on-line today, the extensive damage makes it difficult to predict when that'll happen.

"We've never seen this damage before, and how widespread it is, and how serious it is," he says. "We are in uncharted territory, which is why the State of Emergency was declared. It allows us access to roads, to fuel, to resources of municipalities and the province to get access to the areas where these transmission towers are."

Owen says getting to damaged equipment is difficult because of muddy conditions caused by recent heavy rain.

"Our other neighbouring utilities offered their help," he says. "Your region knows full well how much rain has fallen since the beginning of September, and how saturated those fields are. We need specialized vehicles, tracked vehicles, to get into these areas so we can begin our work."

Owen calls the damage unprecedented, and describes what they're seeing.

"We've got steel transmission towers which are damaged, which are older ones which are crumpled," he says. "We've got what we call conductors, a power line which is down. We have damaged insulators on these transmission towers. And on the wood pole distribution system, one of our field staff remarked he saw more poles on the ground, than were standing."