While most of the Drumheller area power outages have been resolved, ATCO Electric is still working on restoring power in the southern area of Hanna such as Pollockville and Wardlock.
Gerhard Schwarz, ATCO Electric customer service supervisor, told The Mail that there is still a lot of cleaning up work to be done but most of the emergency and customer critical items, such as residential and farm customers, have been completed in the Drumheller area.
The ATCO staff is now concentrating on restoring power in the south of Hanna area, where a large crew and equipment are working hard at restoring power.
“It was the hardest hit area for us, we lost a lot of poles and wires and, as we are getting things repaired, more problems are showing up so the power is unfortunately still out in parts of that area and we are working at getting things repaired today. We have just about all available crew and equipment there, we have almost 50 people down there working and a lot of the equipment.”
Mr. Schwarz is anticipating having power restored there before sunset today.
“Accessibility is causing a problem,” explained Schwarz “because of the wet snow, the terrain is quite muddy, making it hard to get the equipment where it is needed.”
What was unusual about this winter storm was the mix of heavy snow and high winds.
“We don’t usually get both at the same time at this time of year. It’s a bit of an unusual combination and it caused lots of wires to break. We are getting a pretty good handle on at this stage. Fortunately, we have a lot of experienced staff around here so we have a bit of an advantage.”
