Hydro crews work to restore power to downtown Winnipeg following underground fire

A significant part of downtown Winnipeg is going dark for an indefinite period of time Wednesday afternoon, due to what Manitoba Hydro is calling an unplanned outage.

A significant part of downtown Winnipeg is going dark for an indefinite period of time Wednesday afternoon, due to what Manitoba Hydro is calling an unplanned outage.

Spokesperson Bruce Owen told 680 CJOB the cause is an underground fire affecting some of Hydro’s equipment.

Hydro crews could be seen on Albert Street working on the issue.

“In order for us to start repairs, we’ve got to de-energize a large part of our underground electrical equipment, and that will result in an outage to much of the downtown core, including traffic lights,” Owen said.

There’s no indication of how long the outage could last, and Owen said just shy of 1,500 customers could be affected.

“We’ve got to get underground to at least see the extent of damage and then we’ll have a better idea of how we can fix it.”

Drivers heading downtown should be prepared for delays, and to treat all dark intersections as a four-way stop.