Ottawa Hydro repair crews have reconnected almost all clients following a wild thunderstorm system Tuesday night.
As of about 8 a.m., Hydro Ottawa said on social media that about 400 customers remain cut off in small blackouts in various areas of the city.
“Strong winds caused trees and branches to fall on power lines, resulting in broken poles and other damage,” Hydro said on social media Wednesday afternoon.
The utility said that more than 23,000 clients were cut off at the height of the storm.
Elsewhere in Eastern Ontario, Hydro One reported thousands of customers were still without power Wednesday morning.
“In addition to broken poles and cross arms, damage has largely been caused by tree limbs/trees coming down on power lines and equipment and where the ground is very wet/soft, entire trees have been uprooted,” Hydro One on social media.
“In some areas, restoration times will be affected by local roads being washed out due to scattered storms, and access issues will delay crew access. Crews are assessing damage so that an estimated time of restoration can be assigned to each outage.”
Hydro One estimates most customers should have power restored by the end of the day Wednesday.
There were no reports of storm-related injuries.
Ottawa firefighters reported about 50 calls due to the storm, including a call to the Vars area for a horse trapped under a collapsed shelter.
A “distressed caller” in the 8000 block of Russell Road in the Vars area reported that high winds caused a horse shelter to blow over and land on top of a horse.
A veterinarian was called to sedate the horse “due to the risk of the horse kicking while trying to extricate it from underneath the shelter.”
Firefighters used lift bags and hydraulic jacks to lift the structure and placed support cribbing under the structure to prevent it from falling back on the horse.
The rescuers put anchor straps on the sedated horse’s legs to pull it out. At 5:09 p.m. the horse was safely extricated from underneath the structure and was left in the care of the owner and the veterinarian.
In the Outaouais region, Hydro-Québec was reporting 11,270 customers without power at 8 a.m.
The majority of the outages were in rural areas in the Gatineau Hills and beyond.
“Gusts reaching over 100 km/h in some areas caused significant damage to the network, and several pieces of equipment need to be replaced,” the utility said.
“At the peak of the event, nearly 144,000 customers were without electricity,” Hydro-Québec said on its website.
Estimated restoration times vary, but customers are expected to have their power restored sometime Wednesday.
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