The lights are slowly returning for customers throughout southern Manitoba, but Hydro cautions that it will continue to be a slow process. 37,000 customers remain without power in Manitoba as of 7:30 a.m.
The Central Plains and Interlake regions of Manitoba have been the hardest hit. The entire City of Portage la Prairie was without power at one point.
Over 5,000 customers in the city and another 3,300 remain without power in the RM Sunday morning.
Over 2,500 in the Gimli area are also without power.
Hydro says that damage to equipment in rural areas is much worse than originally thought. Repairs have been slowed for affected equipment because getting the materials to the areas has been hampered due to travel conditions.
Environment Canada says they haven't received official snow measurements in the Portage area but expect it to be around 70 centimetres.
Rurally, lots of our equipment is more damaged than we originally thought. Getting access & materials to site to fix these problems has been especially difficult b/c of transportation challenges. Especially in the Portage la Prairie and Interlake areas. #mbstorm #mboutage (4/5)
— Manitoba Hydro (@manitobahydro) October 13, 2019
Some power restoration has reportedly begun for the east side of Portage la Prairie.
As of 7:30 a.m., there are 2,225 customers still without power in the City of Winnipeg.
Small repairs take just as long
Hydro says that in Winnipeg much of the large equipment has been repaired. They are now beginning to work on smaller problems.
Hydro says that work takes just as long to complete as the bigger problems and only brings a few customers back on at a time so progress will appear to be slow.
#mboutage / #mbstorm update: Made good progress in the province today. We restored almost 30,000 customers in Winnipeg & nearly 43,000 customers rurally, but there's lots to do. There are still over 4,700 customers out in Wpg and over 39,000 out in the rest of the province. (1/5) pic.twitter.com/6Oh1QIkND0
— Manitoba Hydro (@manitobahydro) October 13, 2019
The province has declared a state of emergency as a result of the storm and widespread power outages. Premier Brian Pallister says that Hydro made the request so they could have access to funds, more staff, and equipment.