Ontario Power Outage Hit Over 200K People After The Storm & Some Are Still Without Power

Ottawa's power was cut off due to a "loss of supply."

Hydro workers. Right: Damage after the storm in Belleville, Ontario.

Hydro workers. Right: Damage after the storm in Belleville, Ontario.

Contributing Writer

So many Ontarians were left in the dark this past week. According to Hydro One, over 200,000 hydro users had no power following Wednesday's severe storm, which saw winds soaring to 106 km/h in some spots. The Northern Tornadoes Project was even looking into possible tornadoes near Oshawa and Carleton Place.

"Thunderstorms and high winds are resulting in power outages in parts of central and eastern ON," Hydro One tweeted following the storm. "Our crews are responding as quickly and safely as possible."

By Sunday night, Hydro One said in a tweet that hydro workers turned the lights back on for about 238,000 customers, but the 8,000 remaining had no access to electricity. But, thankfully, as of Monday morning, that number shrank to just over 400 hydro users, according to Hydro One's outage map.

"Loss of supply" from Ontario's grid causes major outages in Ottawa

Following the June 15 storm, Hydro Ottawa tweeted that there were quite a few outages across Ottawa.

"Cause: Loss of supply from the provincial grid," reads one tweet from Hydro Ottawa on June 18.

At 1:40 a.m., Hydro Ottawa said that over 10,600 hydro users had no power in the Kanata North, West Carleton, Stittsville, College, Osgoode, Rideau-Goulbourn, Gloucester-South Nepean, and Kanata South wards.

In another tweet, Hydro One told hydro users that it was working with Hydro Ottawa to restore power. "We continue to work together with @hydroottawa to restore power to customers affected by an outage on our system. We appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding."

As a result of the derecho storm that swept the province in May, Hydro One said it's replaced more than 1,900 poles and restored power to almost 760,000, in a press release.

"Hydro One rebuilt entire stretches of power lines in the days following the storm, and we continue to work closely with our suppliers to ensure crews have the materials and equipment they may need," said David Lebeter, the chief operating officer for Hydro One.

And more erratic weather may be on the way. Environment Canada issued several weather alerts across the country this week, including extreme heat warnings throughout northern Ontario. Yikes!

  • Contributing Writer Sarah Crookall (she/her) is a multimedia news reporter and contributing writer with Narcity Ottawa whose investigative work has been featured in the Toronto Star and Metroland Media. Growing up in the Toronto area, Sarah obtained an advanced diploma in journalism at Durham College, later working as news editor at the Fulcrum newspaper while she completed a psychology degree with honours at the University of Ottawa. Sarah has covered a broad range of topics from crises in youth mental health to the suspicious death of a Bengal tiger along the outskirts of Algonquin Park.