Power back to over 4,000 North Bay customers

A faulty connection on a high voltage conductor was the cause

Shot is of corner of Fisher St and McIntyre this morning with power out. Photo by Chris Dawson.

Power has been restored to about 4,350 North Bay Hydro customers this morning. It affected Birchaven, Highway 63 (to Anita), and most of the downtown core on what has been the coldest night of the year.

They lost power around 4 a.m. but crews had the juice flowing again by 8:40.

A few blocks of the downtown core were without power this morning including a stretch between Cassells and Wyld in the downtown area.

Locations such as Tim Hortons on Cassells and GoodLife Fitness on Main Street, normally open early Sunday mornings, were closed.

There are also reports that Pete Palangio arena was closed this morning.

A faulty connection on a high voltage conductor was the cause.

The Smith family emailed BayToday about North Bay Hydro.

"Congratulations on their getting it back on. I had visions of frozen pipes and uncooked Valentines dinners all over the City, And for those on wells, no hydro, no water."

June Smith says the outage has prompted her neighbours to team up and form their own emergency plan.

"Just talking to my elderly neighbour and we are going to get together and make our own emergency plans with a few other neighbours for situations like this. At 7 a.m.our neighbour who had his generator on offered some hydro to us - how nice. Tragedy averted.

"One of us has a land line, one of us always has bottled water; and keeping canned food on hand, don't forget the electric can opener won't work,"