Power outages in the Yukon yesterday afternoon were a result of lightning, said Yukon Energy Corp. spokesperson Janet Patterson.
Power was lost shortly after 2 p.m. in Faro, Carmacks, parts of Porter Creek, Crestview, and communities south of Whitehorse including Marsh Lake, Tagish and Carcross. The Minto mine was also affected.
Just as power was restored to those locations, a second disruption in the grid zapped service to those same areas again.
“When lightning strikes, it can wreak havoc on all sorts of things,” said Patterson.
“It’s a good thing it didn’t take out all of Whitehorse.”
Yukon Energy has new facilities to deal with power surges caused by lightning but, “They didn’t do what they were supposed to do,” said Patterson.
As a result of the outage, several traffic lights throughout the city failed and police officers were called in to direct traffic.
“There are certain things that we can and can’t control here,” said Patterson in response to the outages following close on the heels of recent rate hikes.
“And Mother Nature is one of the things we can’t control.” (Vivian Belik)