About 2,000 homes in northern Saskatchewan were forced to go without power this weekend after a summer storm swept through the province on Friday night.
SaskPower says the storm caused outages in Meadow Lake, Waterhen Lake First Nation, Big River First Nation, Emma Lake and Pinehouse Lake.
Jonathan Tremblay is a spokesperson for SaskPower.
“It’s been a lot of work trying to find everywhere where a tree may have fallen, where there’s a downed line,” he said. “So, we were able to bring back a lot of customers over the weekend, but our guys haven’t stopped working and we’re hoping we’ll get the last few people online, especially around Emma Lake, by noon today, maybe by 1 p.m.”
Tremblay says about 100 homes, mainly in the Emma Lake area, are still without power.
Environment Canada says the storm came in from Alberta around 8 p.m. Friday moving through the North Battleford area northeast to Big River and Emma Lake around 10 p.m.
It reached as far as Pinehouse Lake before entering Manitoba.
Environment Canada Meteorologist John Paul Cragg says the storm was caused by a high atmospheric pressure zone of heat and humidity coming out of Alberta and into Saskatchewan.
He says the storm ended sometime Saturday morning, with winds reaching as high as 100 kilometres per hour.
(PHOTO: A weekend storm caused power outages and damages throughout northern Saskatchewan. Photo courtesy of Priscilla Settee, Facebook.)