Many in Central Alberta and across the province are waking up today, still without power as a result of yesterday’s storm.
 
In the Lacombe area, there is still a large outage according to Fortis Manager of Corporate Communications Alana Antonelli.

“We’ve been working hard overnight to get as many customers restored as possible in the area. We still have roughly 3000 customers who remain off in the area surrounding Lacombe and that we’re working with AltaLink who is our transmission partner in that area to get those customers restored”.

Robin Boschman is Manager of Corporate Communications with AltaLink, she explains what they're currently dealing with and when you can expect power back on.

"We had a trasmission structure break about 5 kilometers northeast of Lacombe, so our crews arrived on site last night, assessed the situation, got the appropriate equipment to site and started working on the repairs at first light this morning at around 5-5:30 am and we're working to and expect that power will be fully restored to customers in the area at 9:30 this morning".

In terms of the equipment damage Boschman explains.

"It was a 138,000 volt wood pole that snapped so the crews are working on it right away, we're working closely with FortisAlberta to make sure everybody has power as soon as possible".

FortisAlberta says more than 300 powerline technicians having been working throughout the night on the remaining power issues.

There are also pockets of areas around Red Deer still experiencing outages, watch for the latest updates on the online outage map from Fortis.

Fortis hopes to have all remaining power issues in the province resolved by 4 pm.

Yesterday’s storm swept through so quickly that Antonelli says Fortis dealt with thousands of calls.

“We did have at the height of it more than 44,000 customers off throughout our service area so it is a large event for us, probably the largest one in at least the last few years that we have experienced”.

Wolf Creek Public Schools was forced to close Clive and Crestomere Schools today as a result of no power.

Buses are still picking up high school students to transport them into Lacombe and Ponoka.