How We Restore Power During a Storm

We work hard year-round to deliver safe, reliable service, but when big storms strike and damage equipment, outages can result. When they do, our entire focus is on safely and quickly restoring service based on a detailed and well-practiced action plan.

During major storms, we use all of our available resources. That means hundreds of line workers and support staff. As needed, we may also get support from contractor crews. We mobilize quickly and continue repairs until the job is done.

Power restoration during storm situations usually proceeds in the following order:

1. Our first priority is supporting firefighters, police and critical public safety facilities, like hospitals.
2. We then focus on major power lines and substations that serve larger numbers of customers.
3. We give higher priority to repairs that will get the largest number of customers back in service as quickly as possible.
4. We then restore power to smaller neighbourhoods and individual homes and businesses.

We know that being without power is never easy, and we appreciate your patience and understanding as we respond.

The diagram below shows the typical order of power restoration on our system. In this case, we would work from the transmission line and then the substation.

First priority in this case goes to fixing the problem at point A, on the transmission line. With this line out, none of the houses can have power restored. Next, we would fix the problem at B on the main distribution line running out of the substation. Houses 2, 3, 4 and 5 are affected by this problem. Next, we'd fix the line at C, affecting houses 4 and 5. Finally, we would fix the service line at D to house 1.

This repair sequence can mean that some homes may be without power while others around them have power. The goal is to bring power back to as many customers at a time as is possible, with special attention given to certain critical facilities, like hospitals and police and fire stations.