Hot Trends: Newfoundland power outages may continue until Tuesday

Some people in Newfoundland may be without power until Tuesday after outages were reported across the island for close to 190,000 customers on Saturday morning.

Michelle Caughlan, with Newfoundland Power, said there were still approximately 25,000 customers without power Sunday morning after the island was hit with the severe power outage.

Caughlin said the majority of customers still without power are located on the eastern portion of the island.

Power was initially knocked out to 190,000 customers, but crews have been working to trim that number down significantly.

A fire at the Sunnyside substation at around 9 a.m. NT on Saturday caused an outage at the Holyrood Generating Station, throwing much of the island into darkness.



The fire began hours after a blizzard hit the region, dumping up to 40 centimetres of snow.

"Our crews have been working hard, they're out and about, ready to reconnect those customers as soon as the generation becomes available," Caughlan said.

She said 60-minute rolling blackouts resumed on Saturday to conserve power to help restore services to more customers.

"Our focus this morning is starting to rotate that power - that's for two reasons, of course. One is the limitations on the generation that we've been able to receive from Newfoundland and Labardor Hydro, and it's also focused on getting some of the power restored to our customers who have been without power since yesterday morning," Caughlan said.

Many businesses in the St. John's region have opened, or are scheduled to open, on Sunday. But Caughlin said Newfoundland Power is advising companies to conserve as much energy as possible while the company works to restore power to other customers.

She said if residents notice their neighbours have power but their home is still without, it is likely an isolated incident that the company needs to look into and to contact them at 1-800-474-5711.

Newfoundland Power is bringing in workers from Prince Edward Island on Monday to help assist with restorations.

Metrobus Transit operations in St. John's are running normally Sunday morning, and flights at St. John's International Airport are also back to normal after yesterday's service interruptions.

Marine Atlantic crossings between Port aux Basques and North Sydney, N.S. are pacing possible delays, but otherwise operating normally. The company is advising customers to continue to check for updates.