Loss of power to 35,000 customers slows business in Regina

“I was on a winning streak — not as good as other people, but I was actually making some money,” said the Saskatoon resident on Monday afternoon. “They took everyone’s name and phone number and their club card if they had one and when the power comes back on, they’re going to cash everyone’s ticket in and you just have to go back and collect your ticket. The machines will be up and running about two hours after the power goes on.”

She was disappointed she had to leave her winning machine but the power outage didn’t dim her enthusiasm for the game of chance.

“I’ll be back tonight — we’ve got to get our tickets and cash them in and keep playing,” said McAuley as she sat on a curb outside the casino.

The lights went out at 1:13 p.m. for 35,000 Regina customers in areas that included downtown and industrial customers, said SaskPower spokesman Larry Christie.

“The power came up twice,” he said. “By two o’clock, since the transmission line didn’t appear to be responding to our attempts to reactivate it, they decided to switch to other substations. That process took about 20 minutes and they almost had it complete when patrols discovered the problem. The power line that was affected runs from the switching station near SIAST under Regina and ends up at the jail and goes in to the Fleet Street sub. Then it leaves that substation and runs all the way along the perimeter of Regina to Condie, which is out by Flowing Springs.”

SaskPower patrols found a transmission structure on the Condie portion had been hit by lightning.

“They went around the structure using other power lines and they’re making plans to repair it now,” he said. “What happened then was that the process reversed itself and they had to switch all of the customers back to the Fleet Street sub.”

Power was restored by 3 p.m., Christie said.

A power outage in a predominately cashless society is a jolt to businesses, said Kelly Hague, owner of Loggie’s Shoes,.

“We can’t process Visa, Mastercard or debit cards so if customers come in, apart from not being able to see very well in the store, if they had cash we could hand write a bill but not many people carry cash so effectively it shuts us down,” Hague said. “It’s not good but thankfully it doesn’t happen very often.”

Monday’s power loss had Dustin Gero, manager/owner of the Pita Pit considering the purchase of a back-up generator. In a prolonged power outage, he estimates he could lose thousands of dollars of frozen inventory in the store’s cooler.

“The power went out just after our lunch rush so it didn’t affect us too much — some people did leave because they didn’t want a cold pita,” Gero said. “We already lose sales because of road closures downtown … Every day we lose, every hour we lose, it just keeps adding up. The loss of power doesn’t help.”

Kelly Snowden, an employee of the Public Employees Benefits Agency, didn’t let the power outage halt her work. She took the stairs down from the 12th floor of the Conexus Plaza on Hamilton Street and sat in front of the building and worked on a laptop.

“I walked down because I’ve been stuck in an elevator before,” she said. “As long as you’re going down 12 flights of stairs it’s not that bad. I have a meeting tomorrow and I just want to make sure that I have a document in order for that client so I’m just going over it. And I thought I’d check to see if our new laptops automatically hook up to wireless. We just got these three weeks ago so I thought today was as good as any to check it.”

Although some natural light streamed through the windows of her office, that didn’t help where she was during the blackout.

“We were in one of the boardrooms when the power went out and it was pretty dark in there,” Snowden said.

Sitting in his hot and muggy Hamilton Street store, tailor Victor Silva looked mournfully at the full racks of clothes waiting to be altered and his silent sewing machine.

“I can do nothing, absolutely nothing,” Silva said. “Last summer (the power) was out for a little while but it only lasted for 15 to 20 minutes.”

Time is money in his business.