Lunenburg residents were in the dark again last night.
A damaged insulator on a substation transmission line was responsible for knocking out the power according Nova Scotia Power.
The blackout extended to Mahone Bay, LaHave and Riverport.
NS Power Spokesperson Tiffany Chase says the problem was identified quickly.
“We did find some damage and that was at the Maitland substation. So once crews were able to identify that, we were able to make the necessary repairs and customers were restored in about three and a half hours.”
Chase says, as frustrating as the outages have been, it’s just a run of really bad luck.
“We do recognize there’s been an unusual amount of outages in these communities in recent weeks. As we have previously noted, many of them are unrelated. There’s no one underlying cause that’s tying all of these outages together.”
Chase says NS Power spends $80 million a year and has approximately 400 employees in field operations to deal with system maintenance and inspections across the province.
Meanwhile, Lunenburg residents are expressing their anger at the frequency of power outages this summer.
Mayor Rachel Bailey says they’re understandably upset.
Some have voiced concerns about NS Power taking over maintenance from the town utility.
Bailey says the new service arrangement has nothing to do with the power interruptions.
“There’s no correlation actually, it’s circumstantial. This would’ve happened whether or not we had a different service arrangement with Nova Scotia Power or we still had our own technicians in place.”
Bailey says the town has brought their concerns about the number of outages this summer to NS Power.
She has been assured these are exceptional circumstances and says in the end, the outages could turn out to be a good thing for residents.
“They [NS Power] will make sure that there are contingency plans and systems put in place so that we are better serviced when the forces of nature are an even greater threat.”
Bailey is confident the power company is urgently looking at the system that services the area to ensure it will be reinforced for the coming winter.
Reported by: Ed Halverson
Twitter: @edwardhalverson
E-mail: halverson.ed@radioabl.ca