Power restored to many, some still to wait

Crews are working hard to bring power back to the many resort areas that have been without service since Monday night’s storm.

“Service has been restored to Waskesiu, the community of Candle Lake is also back on line although some areas outside of Candle Lake we’re still working to restore. Most of the Damage in the city of Prince Albert has cleaned up,” said James Parker, spokesman for SaskPower.

They are making good progress at Emma Lake, but unfortunately there are some customers that will have to wait until tomorrow to see their service restored, he said.

“We’re throwing everything we have at it. We’re bringing in private contractors, but unfortunately we only have so many people and it’s going to take a little bit more time to restore service to some customers.”

Parker estimates most customers who are still without power today should see things back on tomorrow.

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They have called in employees from all over north central Saskatchewan to help with the restoration effort and have even been called some back from their vacations, he said.

“There are a tremendous number of trees on poles or on lines, damage to polls, we have cross arms that we have to fix or replace.”

People are getting anxious since the community is still without power that went out during Monday night’s storm, said Bernard Zurakowski, reeve of the Rural Municipality of Garden River.

The Murray Point Campground at Emma Lake is another area that has been without power since the storm.

Showers and water at the campgrounds have been restored but full electricity will likely be back on tomorrow, Parker said.

The power outage hasn’t stopped operations at a local grocery store and restaurant.

Patty Roth, owner of Fern's Grocery & Events Centre at Emma Lake said their generator has kept them going.

“We’ve been very busy. Since no one had power we had coffee lineups out the door, breakfast, the restaurants been very, very busy. We’ve been selling lots and lots of ice, lots of cold drinks and water,” Roth said.

She said table talk from the customers revolves around how bad the damage is to the area and wondering when power will be back on.

sfroese@panow.com