In the last week or so, I suspect many people have had what they thought were short power cuts during the day, most recently in Copper Ridge. These cuts have largely been just a nuisance, just long enough to reset clocks and take down, possibly damage, any electronics or computers left on.
This is not the normal flakiness of Yukon Electrical.
What is going on is that Yukon Electrical is replacing household meters, and despite knowing that this is happening, and which houses are likely to be affected in any given day, there is no policy telling them to inform people. No phone call, no leaflet, no radio announcement.
This is ongoing, so be warned: be even more prepared than usual for short power failures, and feel free to be irritated that you could have been warned.
In at least two cases including my own, the power failure lasted most of the day and cost me a good hour of an electrician’s time: either 10 years ago or more recently the meter mounts broke, either from a manufacturing flaw, or because of an over-exuberant builder or electrician, and it took most of the day to get the house reconnected.
It is getting warmer, with overnight lows only forecast down to -20, so you might think a six-hour outage is no big deal, but the soil temperature around your water feed is about now at its lowest, even six hours without power risks serious damage.
That Yukon Electrical feels no need to warn people of these predictable outages in the winter in the Yukon is irresponsible, reprehensible, and reckless.
Peter Coates
Whitehorse