On Saturday an intense wind storm tore across the Eastern half of the island and brought snow and blizzard conditions throughout Central and Western areas. The Avalon and Burin Peninsulas, St. John’s and surrounding areas were the hardest hit, with significant damage to Hydro’s transmission lines and Newfoundland Power’s transmission and distribution systems. Peak wind gusts of 180 km/h (stronger than recorded during Hurricane Igor) were recorded on the south west Avalon and gusts of 159 km/h were recorded in the St. John’s area, with wind gusting between 120 and 150 km/h throughout the afternoon and well into the evening.

Power outages were caused by airborne debris, trees contacting lines, failed insulators, downed power lines and poles that cracked off or blew down. While high winds hampered restoration efforts on Saturday afternoon and evening, crews from across the island mobilized to help with the power restoration efforts on the Avalon when conditions were safe. They worked long hours throughout the day and night to get power back to our customers.

Our crews and employees would like to sincerely thank you, our customers, for your patience and understanding during this recent winter storm. Your kind words and support as crews worked around the clock in challenging weather conditions to restore power as safely and quickly as possible were very much appreciated.

We know you depend on us when outages happen. We are ready to respond in all kinds of weather, anytime of the day or night, when you need us most. And we won’t rest until the very last customer has their power back on. That’s because…Whenever. Wherever. We’ll be there.