Three small pockets of the city remained without power Tuesday following a severe storm that tore across southwestern Ontario over the long weekend.
The outages are located in the Argyle, Carling, and Huron Heights neighbourhoods.
"They are single customers where there is a broken line where we have to get out to repair," said London Hydro Spokesperson Nancy Hutton. "Of course we did the major outages first to get as many people back on as possible so now we are working through the smaller outages because we still have to clear broken tree limbs and do some clearance before we can get those affected areas back on."
Power outages in London as of May 24, 2022. Image courtesy of London Hydro.
At the height of the outage, there were 32,000 customers without power in London.
Hutton expects the bulk of the remaining customers still without electricity will be reconnected by mid-day.
"The only exception is for customers who have damage to the stack on their home, which is where the overhead connects electricity to the home," said Hutton. "If that has been damaged they are required to have an electrician repair that and then it has to be inspected by the Electric Safety Authority. Once we get that clearance that it has been inspected then we will go out immediately and get them reconnected."
The widespread, fast-moving windstorm, known as a derecho, coupled with torrential rain and hail moved across southwestern and southern Ontario Saturday downing trees and power lines and causing property damage.
Hutton said the level of damage led to an "all hands on deck" situation, with London Hydro, the City of London's forestry department, and independent contractors working together.
"The difficulty with this storm, which we haven't seen for a very long time, is the amount of mature trees that were uprooted," said Hutton. "So trees that don't normally come down in wind storms that are considered more hearty and healthy. The difficulty is all of that debris and removal of trees has to happen to be able to get to the infrastructure to repair it."
Western University's Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) is investigating the possibility tornadoes touched down during the storm. NTP teams are already in Uxbridge and Ottawa where the damage was the most severe.
"Given the complexity of the damage due to the derecho, it will require thorough analysis in order to classify / rate the event," NTP said on its social media channel.
At least ten people were killed during Saturday's storm, including a 27-year-old Brantford woman who was struck by a falling tree at a campground on Pinehurst Road in Brant County.
