UPDATE: Power restoration work continues on Northern Peninsula

Crews from Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro are continuing work today to restore power for customers on the Northern Peninsula affected by a winter storm outage.

Power for customers in Norris Point has been restored, according to Hydro spokeswoman Merissa King. Wind caused a roof to blow off the top of a property in Rocky Harbour. The roof came in contact with a power line supplying customers in Norris Point.

“They made some temporary repairs there, but there’s still a lot of down power lines in Rocky Harbour, but it’s not affecting power supply,” said King.

Several communities remain without power, including those in the areas of Plum Point, Green Island Cove, Bellburn, and Trout River. Hydro did not have estimates available for power restoration in those areas as of midday Monday.

Additional crews are expected to arrive in the area from central Newfoundland on Monday to assist with repairs.

“Factors are changing fairly frequently as crews can get around,” said King. “What they’ll do is try to bring back as many customers as possible, but they may not get a full community back at the same time. On days like today, it’s always a challenge to provide exact restoration times.”

Hydro earlier announced that service in some communities where power was restored may be interrupted to avoid overloading the system. As many as 4,600 customers were without power on the Northern Peninsula overnight.

Approximately 30 customers in Natuashish are without power today because of an issue with a distribution line. King said poor weather in Happy Valley-Goose Bay was preventing crews from travelling to the northern Labrador community to investigate the problem.

“As soon as the weather conditions improve and we are able to get a flight to Natuashish, we’ll sent a crew in to investigate,” she said.

--- Earlier story --

Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro (Hydro) is reporting that power has been restored to all customers on the Northern Peninsula, except Plum Point and surrounding communities.

Following a severe winter storm Sunday night, about 4,600 customers lost power overnight. Newfoundland Hydro said crews were unable to continue restoration efforts for safety reasons.

Weather conditions improved early this morning, allowing crews to resume work. Customers in Hawke’s Bay, Port Saunders, Port Aux Choix, St. Anthony and Roddickton are being supplied power through diesel generation. Hydro is requesting customers in St. Anthony and Roddickton to limit electricity use this morning. If load becomes too high, Hydro may interrupt power to some customers to avoid overloading the system.

Crews continue power restoration efforts this morning for about 1,000 customers in Plum Point and surrounding communities and Norris Point as they resolve issues related to Sunday night’s storm.

Hydro says it apologizes for any inconvenience and appreciates the patience of its customers. Updates are available from the Hydro Power Outages and Emergencies 24-hour line at 1-888-737-1296. Regular updates are also provided at Twitter.com/NLHydro and www.facebook.com/NLHydro.