A City of Whitehorse employee works to get the lights working properly at the Two Mile Hill and Alaska Highway intersection after a power outage in Whitehorse on April 22. (Crystal Schick/Yukon News)

More than 12,000 customers hit by power outage

A widespread outage began just before 9 a.m.

Residents and businesses in Whitehorse and the Southern Lakes spent much of their April 22 morning in the dark after an outage knocked out power to the areas at 8:55 a.m. when many were starting their day.

A total of 12,124 customers were impacted, ATCO Electric Yukon spokesperson Jay Massie said.

Power was fully restored by 11:38 a.m. with Porter Creek being the last area to come online.

Riverdale was the first neighbourhood to have its power restored at 10:09 a.m.

Areas south of Whitehorse and the Southern Lakes had their lights back on between 10:44 a.m. and 10:48 a.m.

ATCO made use of social media to communicate with customers.

“We are experiencing a power outage in and around Whitehorse. ATCO crews are working safely and quickly to restore power,” it tweeted shortly after 9 a.m.

That was followed at 9:28 a.m. with a tweet stating it wasn’t clear when power would be restored and a third tweet stating it was expected power would be fully restored by 12:30 p.m.

Yukon Energy also offered updates via social media, noting it was working with ATCO Electric Yukon to restore power.

As for a cause, Massie said: “The cause was due to a loss of supply and more details will be available tomorrow.”

Contact Stephanie Waddell at stephanie.waddell@yukon-news.com

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