Power back on after broad outage downtown

A power outage affecting a large part of the greater downtown area lasted for nearly an hour Wednesday afternoon.

The area stretched as far west as the convention centre and as far north as beyond the Canadian Pacific Rail yards.

The Crown corporation said on X, formerly known as Twitter, at 12:48 p.m. that crews had been dealing with an underground equipment fire that might result in the power being turned off. Hydro later posted to say the outage would begin at 1:30 p.m. and shared a map of the affected area after the outage started.

Hydro initially said it didn’t know how long the outage, which affected about 1,300 customers, would last.

Traffic slowed to a crawl through much of downtown, and police cadets began heading to major intersections to direct traffic. At other intersections, crossing guards stationed for students at nearby schools helped drivers, and some intersections were unmanned, leaving drivers to treat them as four-way stops.

Manitoba Hydro spokesperson Bruce Owen called the outage a “huge inconvenience to a lot of people.”

“It’s a major outage, no doubt … it doesn’t happen that often, but it does happen,” he said.

Owen said it was too early to tell if repairing any damage from the fire could require another outage.

The power was back on by 2:22 p.m. The outage was shorter for some customers than for others.

The fire began in an underground chamber at 75 Albert St. and affected electrical wiring. Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service crews were sent to the scene at 10:54 a.m. and saw smoke coming from a manhole. Working with Hydro staff members, crews extinguished the fire using foam and cleared the scene at 12:30 p.m.

After the fire was put out, power had to be turned off for Hydro crews to determine the extent of the damage to the cables, Owen said.

“For our crews to get down underground and to begin handling the underground cables — these are high voltage cables, and we have to de-energize it, so our crews aren’t put in any risk,” he said.

Millenium Library staff members decided to close for the day before they knew how brief the power outage would be.

No one was injured in the fire. The cause is unknown.

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca