Ontario power companies respond to large scale black out

A photo of downed trees and powerlines shared to social media by Hydro One. (Hydro One)

Power is slowly returning to the region after severe weather left thousands in the dark on Canada Day.

Severe weather across Simcoe County left thousands without power and knocked down several trees and powerlines in the area that crews are now working to clean up.

RELATED: Thousands blacked out after Barrie, central Ontario thunderstorms

“We’re responding as safely and quickly as possible to outages caused by thunderstorms across the province,” said power company Hydro One via a pop-up statement on its website.

“After a storm, Hydro One prioritizes restoration in a way that brings power back to the greatest number of customers in the shortest period of time,” the company said.

In a statement posted to social media, the company is also asking residents to stay at least 10 metres back from downed powerlines in their area.

As of Thursday morning, places like Georgina and Innisfil are still being assessed for damage, according to the outage map of power company InnPower.

“Our crews continue to make steady progress restoring power across our service area following today’s storm,” the corporation said in a series of outage update posts on social media on Wednesday.

Elexicon Energy also took to social media to apologize to customers on Wednesday evening.

“We apologize for the inconvenience caused by this evening’s outages following a short but severe storm,” the company says via a post on X.

“Crews have been dispatched and are actively responding,” the company says, adding “we will work 24/7 until power is restored.”