Hydro Ottawa is not committing to a new deadline to restore electricity to thousands of customers, a week after a devastating storm with gusts of 190 km / h reached Ottawa.
As of Saturday morning, 19,000 homes and businesses were without electricity. Since the storm hit last Saturday, more than 161,000 Hydro Ottawa customers have been restored to electricity. About 7,000 more customers restored electricity during the night.
Hydro Ottawa initially promised to restore power to “most” of the grid on Friday evening, but rainy conditions on Thursday and Friday and the spread of damage and debris in some areas slowed recovery efforts.
“The job is complicated, dangerous and time consuming,” said Hydro Ottawa President and CEO Bryce Conrad.
Conrad says teams across the province remain in Ottawa to help Hydro Ottawa teams repair the damage and restore electricity.
“The only commitment I can make is that the crews will be there working 24 hours a day until they recover,” Conrad said Friday afternoon. “A couple more days of good hard work, hopefully we can get there.”
Hydro teams focus on Saturday in the following areas
- BelAir Heights
- Manordale
- Parkwood Hills
- Stittsville
- Tanglewood
“Our forces here, which are provided by other utilities and our contractors, are not going anywhere,” Systems Operations Director Joseph Muglia told CFRA Live at Newstalk 580 CFRA with Andrew Pinsent. “They stay here. We make sure to reclaim these areas before anyone leaves.”
In a note to councilors on Friday night, Conrad said that “the amount of damage to our infrastructure as well as the inclement weather (Friday) morning negatively affected our restoration efforts.”
A post on Hydro Ottawa’s website on Saturday morning said that “today’s weather is hindering our progress,” but that “crews are continuing their restoration efforts.”
Environment Canada says 16.2 mm of rain fell on Ottawa airport on Friday. Some scattered showers also continued Saturday morning, but conditions are expected to improve in the afternoon.
Conrad says that after an additional inspection and after six days of work, teams have confirmed that approximately 400 hydraulic poles were damaged during the storm.
“From a construction standpoint, we’ve done almost a year of construction in the last six days,” Conrad said.
“While this is a small consolation for customers running out of electricity, it is nonetheless evidence of our commitment to a fully revitalized community.”
During the 2018 tornadoes, 80 Hydro Ottawa poles were damaged.
Hydro Ottawa still has more than “150 events” to manage and complete, according to Conrad.
“We have a list of more than 1,500 known or reported tree contacts / tree interferences that need to be addressed and resolved. And as we do additional restoration work, those numbers have the potential to increase,” Conrad said.
“The good news is that we have all the resources, both forestry and utilities, that we need to restore energy as quickly as we can.”
Tonight’s update to Hydro Ottawa CEO Bryce Conrad. Work continues on the affected areas. I just learned that Manotick was back online, but even more so. Hopefully tonight more. pic.twitter.com/JLDPlInURi
– Scott Moffatt (@ ScottMoffatt21) May 28, 2022
CAPITAL CLEANING
The City of Ottawa is launching a new neighborhood cleanup program called “Cleaning the Capital: After the Storm.”
Like the annual Cleaning the Captial program, neighbors, family, and friends can work together to clean up their neighborhood after the storm. Residents are asked to fill out the electronic registration form for the “Capital Cleanup” program.
Supplies can be picked up from Saturday, between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m., at the following locations:
- Navan Memorial Center & Arena, 1295 Colonial Road
- Howard Darwin Centennial (Merivale) Arena, 1765 Merivale Road
- Hunt Club-Riverside Park Community Center, 3320 Paul Anka Drive
- CARDELREC Recreation Complex (Goulbourn), 1500 Shea Road
CLEAN UP
The City of Ottawa says clearing down trees, bushes and debris is “one of our biggest focuses” for crews this weekend.
More than 700 public works employees have been deployed to focus on cleaning.
Director General of Public Works Alain Gonthier admits that there is “a lot of work to be done”.
“It will take us a few weeks to get through it all,” Gonthier said. “But we will continue to work until we have everything erased.”
Gonthier says the city has been classified into three levels based on the amount of rubble.
Level one areas are areas where waste cleaning can be addressed through weekly collection, while level two will be areas that require “additional capacity” to clean up waste. Gonthier says Level Three requires specialized equipment for some neighborhoods, including the Pineglen neighborhood.
“Where we have had to bring large, specialized equipment to be able to move more material within the community,” Gonthier said, adding that it will take weeks to clean up the storm.
GREEN PASTRY
Today will be the last day that large containers will be installed in 15 locations for organic waste, and the city is wrapping up the “Green Bin Blitz” to collect rotten and spoiled food in homes.
Gonthier says 43 tons of organic household waste have been collected this week.
The locations of the giant containers for collecting organic waste are:
- CARDELREC Goulbourn recreational complex at 1500 Shea Rd.
- Navan Memorial Center at 1295 Colonial Rd.
- Hunt Club-Riverside Park Community Center at 3320 Paul Anka Dr.
- Howard Darwin Centennial Arena at 1765 Merivale Rd.
- Minto Recreation Complex at 3500 Cambrian Rd.
- Walter Baker Sports Center at 100 Malvern Dr.
- Osgoode Community Center at 5660 Osgoode Main St.
- Library of Orleans at 1705 Orleans Blvd.
- Lincoln Heights car park near Richmond Road and Croydon Ave.
- Dr. Greely Community Center at 1448 Meadow
- North Gower Customer Service Center at 2155 Roger Stevens Dr.
- Richmond Arena at 6095 Perth St.
- Constance Bay Community Center at 262 Len Purcell Dr.
- Sawmill Creek Community Center at 3350 D’aoust Ave.
- Diamond Jubilee Park at 4008 Kelly Farm Dr.