Southern Saskatchewan sees power outages due to high winds

本站添加: 2026-05-21

[00:00:04]After looking outside his kitchen window, Travis Seifert took a drive to see the blowing wind a bit closer. I'd say 10 seconds and it was just you couldn't even see like 5 ft in front of you. It was crazy. Seifert, who lives in the southwest corner of the province, says his family has been without power since Wednesday evening due to the severe wind storms.

[00:00:25]>> I've never seen anything like that in my lifetime. Like it was it was crazy to see a dust storm in this country. As a result, 10 transmission structures have been damaged in several southwest communities, according to SaskPower, with wind gusts as high as 110 km/h. The storm-related damage has impacted customers in Eastend, Rosebud, and other rural areas towards the US border. We are able to restore some of communities through switching, but the community of Eastend is fed only by the line that's damaged, and so we need to complete repairs there before we can restore power. On Thursday afternoon, several areas in southern Saskatchewan were reporting unplanned power outages. Environment Canada says the cause of these major wind storms is a deep low pressure system that has come from Alberta, which is common in spring.

[00:01:14]We also have a big push of cold air coming in from the Arctic. So, when you combine the really warm air that we had the last couple days and some cold air and a rapidly deepening deepening low pressure system, that's when you have that combination for really strong winds. Luckily, we got a generator, so we can run a couple things.

[00:01:34]We've actually been without power quite a few times this winter, so it's it's nothing new to us. Although crews have been on site since Thursday morning, SaskPower says some communities are expected to be without power until Friday, when high winds have calmed down, making it safer for workers to do their jobs. Sierra Suazo Butts, CTV News, Regina.