Power restored in Saskatoon after major outage caused by failed switch

Power has been restored across Saskatoon after a major outage Tuesday afternoon.

According to the Saskatoon Light and Power outage map, large sections of the city's east, west, central and north began experiencing power disruptions around 1:40 p.m. CST. It was fully restored by around 4:30 p.m.

The City of Saskatoon reported on its website that equipment failure was responsible for the outage, and that electrical crews were working on repairs.

Trevor Bell, director of Saskatoon Light and Power, said the outage was caused by a failed high-voltage switch in a substation in the northwest corner of the city and that power had to be restored in phases. 

"When that switch failed, it caused a cascading outage affecting everything around the edges of our area, right from the west to the east, portions of the middle part of Saskatoon," Bell said.

He said crews tried to restore the power all at once, but that didn't happen. Bell said the problem has been isolated and they'll be working to find out exactly why the switch failed.

"Now we have to go in and take a look at that switch," he said. "I don't know the actual reason. I don't think that it was weather related." 

Bell said the utility has five main feeds and the outage affected two of them, causing a crescent-shaped area of power loss.

"I don't know when the last big one like this was," he said. "It's been a few years for sure. So this was not the kind of thing that happens with every year. This is pretty rare event."

Bell said he's not aware of any emergencies in hospitals or schools as a result of the outage.

Around 3:30 p.m. CST, the city said power was starting to come back in some areas, including parts of Grosvenor Park, Varsity View, Nutana and College Park.

Another update just after 4 p.m. said Mount Royal, Caswell Hill, Westmount, Mayfair and the eastern half of Westview had power back.

Royal University Hospital and St. Pauls Hospital were unaffected by the power outage. City Hospital and the Idylwyld Medical Centre were on back up as of 3 p.m. CST.

Traffic lights went down across the city, creating disruptions. Traffic was backed up for hours on College Drive heading toward Circle Drive as people adhered to the four way stop sign rules on major intersections where the lights were not working.