CITYnews halifax: Power out for thousands in Halifax area on hottest day of the year

CITYnews halifax / By Mark Hodgins

Tens of thousands of people in Halifax area are without power on Friday evening after a fire at a Nova Scotia Power substation.

Nova Scotia Power reported outages in a large area beginning just after 8 p.m., impacting areas including Bedford, Clayton Park, Spryfield, Sambro and Timberlea, among many other communities.

The utility reported more than 44,000 customers were impacted by the outages, which were blamed on a transmission interruption according to the Nova Scotia Power outage map. The estimated time of restoration was just before midnight Friday.

“Our crews are investigating the cause of the outage affecting customers in Halifax and will restore power as soon as possible,” read a social media post from Nova Scotia Power. “We’re very sorry for the disruption to your Friday evening.”

In a Facebook post, MLA Tim Outhit shared a message from NSP’s government relations team, which said the outage was due to a fire at the Lakeside substation.

“The outage is not load-related, there was a fire at the substation,” the 10 p.m. statement read. “The situation remains active but think that we can restore power without the next couple of hours. That assessment could change as crews continue their assessment.”

The outage came on the hottest day of the year so far for the Halifax area. Temperatures on Friday afternoon reached 34 degrees, and felt more like the low 40’s with the humidity factored in.

As of 9 p.m. Friday, a heat warning remained in effect for the mainland of Nova Scotia.