Notice to Canadian Niagara Power Customers - Update on Storm Restoration

Dec. 26, 2022, 6:12 p.m. - Further to the update we provided yesterday, as of 5pm on December 26, 2022 there are approximately 3,900 customers that remain without power.

Today there were upwards of 61 line and field team members working since early this morning to restore power. Together with CNPI crews, crews from other local utilities, line contractors and field contractors restoring efforts have been in full force. We have continued to make good progress today and have restored over 2,500 more customers and crews will continue to work into late in the evening.

At the peak of the outage there were 15,000 customers without power and we have restored approximately 11,000 customers since that time. The safety of our crews and the community remain our number one priority.

We know how frustrating this is for our customers. Please be assured that crews are out all over Fort Erie, Crystal Beach, Ridgeway, Stevensville and Port Colborne and will continue to be there until all customers have power. Thank you to our customers for their continued patience and understanding. We would also like to thank our community for their great support in helping us acquire food and accommodations for our visiting crews. We could not do this without your support.

Please note warming centres are set up at the Leisureplex in Fort Erie and the Vale Centre in Port Colborne for customers without power.

Canadian Niagara Power Inc. (“CNPI”) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of FortisOntario Inc. ("FortisOntario"). CNPI has approximately 29,000 customers in Fort Erie, Port Colborne, and Gananoque. For further information visit www.cnpower.com. 

Dec. 25, 2022 - On Friday, December 23, 2022 a major winter storm hit Fort Erie and Port Colborne. Sustained winds of over 80km/hr with wind gusts as high as 120 km/hr along with over 50 cm of blowing snow since Friday has wreaked havoc to the communities we provide power to.

As a result of this extreme weather, there have been widespread power outages throughout Fort Erie and Port Colborne, some since Friday morning. There were approximately 14,000 customers without power this morning (December 25) and as of 4 p.m., CNPI currently has 9,600 customers without power.

Our crews were prepared for this storm, but the blizzard like conditions impeded restoration efforts since Friday evening. As the safety of our workers and the public is our number one priority, CNPI worked closely with the Town of Fort Erie and the City of Port Colborne to ensure access to the roads were made possible once it was safe to do so.

We know that power outages are frustrating at any time of the year, but this is the Christmas weekend, and we know how this affects our customers. Please be assured that as soon as we were able to safely have the crews on the road, they were. We used the time while we all waited out the storm to plan so that we could implement quickly, at a moments notice. Since Christmas morning we restored power to a significant amount of customers.

Our Operations’ team contracted crews from as far as Sudbury to assist, and they were able to make the drive on the holiday weekend to assist with restoration efforts. Additional contractors and crews from other local utilities will arrive on Boxing Day to assist. Local contractors have provided front loaders to lead our crews to priority locations.

CNPI Operations teams are fully mobilized to support the restoration efforts. The restoration effort is going to take some time. We are still in the process of assessing the damage and will get as many customers restored as quickly as possible but there will be some customers with prolonged outages, in hard to reach areas and where there has been substantial damage.

We ask customers to call our 24/7 line at 1-844-501-9473 (WIRE) to report emergencies and longer outages. Please check our website at www.cnpower.com for updates and follow us on Twitter @CNPpower and Facebook for updates. The Town of Fort Erie is in the process of setting up warming stations, please check their website at www.forterie.ca for updates.

Lastly, we would like to thank our customers. We know that this has not been easy for anyone and we are working as hard as we can to safely restore power to our customers. Thank you for your continued patience and understanding. We would also like to thank our community for their great support in helping us acquire food and accommodations for our visiting crews. We could not do this without your support.

Canadian Niagara Power Inc. (“CNPI”) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of FortisOntario Inc. ("FortisOntario"). CNPI has approximately 29,000 customers in Fort Erie, Port Colborne, and Gananoque. For further information visit www.cnpower.com.

A message from Canadian Niagara Power.