The storm that struck southern Manitoba this week has caused the worst damage from a summer storm on record for Manitoba Hydro, the Crown corporation says. More than 30,000 customers lost power after Wednesday’s storm, which brought fierce winds that downed trees and Hydro infrastructure, along with thousands of lightning strikes. As of Friday afternoon, Hydro said 350 outages remained, affecting about 4,500 customers, mostly in and around Winnipeg. “We had a major severe storm back in June. At the time, we said that was the worst summer storm damage we’d ever seen. Well, this tops it,” Hydro spokesperson Peter Chura said Friday. He said this week’s storm has surpassed the damage caused by the June 9–10 storm, which triggered overland flooding in multiple communities and led to two confirmed tornadoes, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada. “This is worse damage, more widespread, more customers without power,” Chura said. “It really is a tremendous challenge to try to get to all of it.” Hydro says crews are prioritizing repairs that will restore power to the greatest number of customers first. The utility hopes to have most outages fixed by Friday night, though some smaller, more isolated outages may not be resolved until Saturday. “With so many small, localized outages spread all across the city… there’s probably going to be some that we don’t get to tonight,” Chura said. READ MORE: ‘Summer storm packs powerful punch across Manitoba’ Crews from other parts of the province have been brought into the Winnipeg area to help with restoration, Hydro said. Because of the scale of the damage, the utility has temporarily removed estimated restoration times from its outage map and paused outage notifications. Hydro says customers can help avoid unnecessary delays by checking their home’s electrical service mast—if it’s been damaged, it must be repaired by a licensed electrician before power can be restored. The June storm left tens of thousands of Manitobans without power and dumped more than 250 millimetres of rain on Stonewall, causing widespread overland flooding. Environment and Climate Change Canada received reports of grapefruit-sized hail—about 100 millimetres in diameter—in Otterburne, along with tennis-ball-sized hail in Winnipeg and Sanford. That storm also set a record for insurance claims from a single weather event in the province, with Manitoba Public Insurance opening more than 30,000 claims—surpassing the previous record set by a 1996 hailstorm. It’s too early to say how much the damage from this week’s storm will cost, Chura said. “Right now, we’re just focused on safely restoring the power as quickly as possible,” he said.
