People in parts of northwest Saskatchewan are still dealing with the results of severe weather earlier this week.
Strong winds on Tuesday brought down trees which caused damage to power lines and left communities in the dark.
At the Buffalo River Dene Nation, the generator for the reserve’s water treatment plant ran out of fuel, and the local food store was without power for two days.
Band councilor Willie Billette says it caused a crisis situation for some people, especially for elders and those with special needs:
“We weren’t prepared for this kind of a crisis. We don’t have a plan in place for this kind of crisis. Usually, when the power goes out, the longest it usually goes out . . . is seven hours — but nothing of this magnitude.”
At last word, power had been restored to most of the reserve by 2:30 this afternoon.
Environment Canada severe weather specialist John Paul Cragg says the worst was Tuesday morning when winds over 115 km/h were recorded at Buffalo Narrows:
“It’s all going to depend on the structures, and what it hits. But you can have quite a bit of damage with wind gusts of 115 km/h. Trees can come down at that speed, and you can lose parts of your roof — and it depends on how your structure is built, but it can do a lot of damage.”
SaskPower spokesperson Tyler Hopson says the power was first restored in the Beauval and Buffalo Narrows regions.
But he says repairs in other areas have taken much longer than originally expected:
“They didn’t estimate that it was going to take quite this long to restore power, but they have seen continued problems due to winds and weather — as well as, of course, needing to allow crews some rest time for safety reasons. They are subject to some mandatory rest breaks, particularly in the night hours.”
Hopson says repair work continues on smaller, individual outages in the Buffalo Narrows, La Loche and Ile-a-la-Crosse areas.
SaskPower crews are also on the way to fix a faulty transformer in Pinehouse.