Crew members from Bluewater Power have joined the effort to restore electricity to thousands of people still affected by the recent ice storm in central and eastern Ontario.
As of Tuesday morning, Hydro One said just over 35,000 customers were still without power.
Bluewater Power President and CEO Janice McMichael-Dennis said local employees have been helping out since the beginning of the massive outage.
"So we have had a total of about 12 people involved," said McMichael-Dennis. "Eight are still up in the Orillia area and they've been there almost two weeks now. So we have eight men, six big trucks, they're working 16 hours a day, long days."
McMichael-Dennis said they're always pleased to do their part to help out.
"It's a very rewarding job," said McMichael-Dennis. "You have people coming out and cheering, and we're getting emails here daily from people we've never -- of course -- heard of before, people from Orillia sending notes saying thank you to you and your men for getting my power back. These people have been without power for, we're talking almost two weeks for some of them, so it's extreme."
At the height of the March 30 ice storm, over a million homes and businesses experienced power outages.
McMichael-Dennis said she's hoping the job can wrap up by the end of this week and the local workers can safely return home to their families.
She said high voltage work is among the top ten most dangerous lines of work in the world.
"Our guys are trained so well, but you're working on a system you don't know, on assets you don't know, with, in some cases staff or a control rooms that you don't know, so you have to take it up a notch," said McMichael-Dennis. "The mother in me always breathes a sigh of relief when I let them do what they're meant to do, but then they get home safe and sound."
Hydro One said crews are rebuilding sections of the local distribution grid in many places and over 2,300 broken hydro poles have been identified.