P.E.I. could be another week without power, says Maritime Electric

CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — Maritime Electrical estimates it may take as much as one other week earlier than energy is restored to everybody in Prince Edward Island.

“Based mostly on the crews that we have now and the outages that we have now now, we’re predicting (it is going to be) into subsequent Friday,’’ mentioned Kim Griffin, spokesperson for the utility, referring to Oct. 14. “We all know that is horrible information for many individuals with out their energy.’’

Griffin mentioned, as of 4 p.m. on Oct. 7, there are slightly below 10,000 households nonetheless with out energy, a rise from what the utility had been reporting the earlier two days.

At one level on Oct. 7, the outage map on Maritime Electrical’s web site was indicating greater than 11,000 households have been nonetheless darkish.

Griffin mentioned Maritime Electrical had despatched its meter readers out throughout the province on Oct. 6 to hold out what the utility calls ping information assortment. Primarily, these meter readers have been discovering there are much more particular person outages than initially thought.

Griffin added crews are additionally reporting in depth harm in locations and the utility estimates it’s two and a half days behind the place it thought it was.

“And, that’s horrible information. It was a historic storm.’’

Griffin mentioned post-tropical Dorian in 2019 precipitated its share of energy outages however, in that case, issues have been largely on the transmission stage.

“After we put prospects on then we have been capable of placed on hundreds at a time. With Fiona, our transmission system was nice, our substations have been nice, our underwater sea cables have been nice, however the issue is on the smaller particular person stage in communities.’’

She mentioned it’s taking crews 4 to 5 occasions longer to restore an outage than it could usually.

There are 223 restoration crews in P.E.I. from British Columbia to Newfoundland and Labrador.

“This isn’t the information individuals needed to listen to and we don’t wish to hear it,” Griffin mentioned, pausing to compose herself. “We’re upset. We simply couldn’t have predicted it was going to take this for much longer per outage.’’