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Hoar frost keeping SaskPower crews busy

Dec 3, 2018 | 12:24 PM

The picturesque hoar frost across the province isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

SaskPower has responded to a significant number of outages in Saskatchewan.

“That frost out there, although beautiful and definitely very picture-worthy, causes significant issues on our power equipment,” SaskPower spokesperson Jordan Jackle told northeastNOW. “It did so in a wide area, pretty much anywhere from Prince Albert south to the U.S. border was experiencing those frost issues. So what we saw was a number of different pockets of outages caused by lines going down, for the most part.

Jackle said the frost causes a number of different issues.

“Frost builds up on a power line, causes additional weight, and one of two things can happen,” Jackle said. “It will either kind of break the attachment point on a pole so the line goes down, of in some cases the line actually breaks so we have to kind of re-string or repair that section of line.”

Trees can also lead to problems for SaskPower as well, Jackle said. The trees can be weighed down, break and fall on a line, or simply just touch a line as well.

Jackle said frost can also cause issues with equipment itself, causing short circuits that wouldn’t even occur in a rainstorm.

The Melfort area saw a power outage for several hours late Saturday night into Sunday morning.

“That particular (outage) was caused by the frost actually causing issues on a transmission line,” Jackle said. “We did manage to get that fixed in a few hours, and get that power restored.”

There are some reminders for people should they spot a downed line.

“We really ask people that if they do see lines down, or lines seriously sagging, first of all do not go near it but definitely call the outage centre at 310-2220 to report that,” Jackle said. “There are times where a line can be down or a line can be sagging significantly and the power is still on. The line may appear as though there’s no power flowing through it, but there may very well be, so it is important to call that in.”