Two consecutive electrical outages made for a chaotic Monday in Saskatoon.It all started around 11 a.m., when a power pole next to Highway 7 between 11th Street and Highway 60 caught fire, weakening to a point where it could no longer support the 72,000-kilovolt line that supplies power to the west side of the city.
SaskPower crews managed to install a temporary replacement for the pole and restore service by 5 p.m. to the affected area, which reportedly included smaller communities such as Martensville, Hague, Rosthern, Dalmeny, Borden, Radisson, Wakaw and Duck Lake.
SaskPower spokesperson Shawn Silzer said it’s too soon to speculate on the cause of the fire.
“We will do an investigation of that afterwards, but right now the focus has been on getting that pole out of the way and getting a new temporary pole in there so that we can restore the service,” he said.
“But certainly we’ll do an investigation and if there’s anything that indicates vandalism we’ll call in the RCMP and the local fire department. The initial indication when I talked to the guys on site was that there was no initial sign of vandalism.” Read More
