No timetable for repairs yet for power outage in southwest Sask.

About 3,000 customers were still without power early Tuesday afternoon after an outage in the southwestern part of Saskatchewan overnight.

Scott McGregor with SaskPower said no estimated time has been determined yet for repairs to be complete. The outage seems to have occurred because of a downed transmission line.

However, since the line is down in difficult terrain, McGregor said work is being done to develop a plan to ensure a safe repair can be completed. Once that plan is in place, a time for restoration of services can be set.

The initial outage happened Tuesday morning between 12:30 a.m. and 2 a.m., McGregor said, when the transmission line tripped off. He said SaskPower was able to restore power to it quickly, but it tripped off again around 5:30 a.m.

Crews were dispatched to identify the cause of the outage and the downed line was located.

The exact cause behind the downed line hasn’t been determined yet, McGregor said, but he noted that part of the province has been experiencing high winds over the past day.

McGregor explained that SaskPower has transmission lines and distribution lines as part of its two different networks or grids.

He said transmission lines are attached to the big, hulking structures that can be seen in the country. These lines bring power in from generating stations to substations. That power then gets picked up by distribution services.

He compared the system to a highway with outages acting like roadblocks.

Customers in Climax, Orkney, Val Marie and surrounding rural areas, as well as customers southwest of Eastend and oilfield customers north of Shaunavon were among those affected by the outage.

— With files from 650 CKOM’s Brent Bosker