Downtown Burlington experiences unplanned hydro outages

News 100 redBy Staff

October 3rd, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Hydro operations centre

Hydro operations control room. This is where the service information is gathered.

It has been a bit of a tough time for people in the downtown core, especially east of Brant. Power has been off for up to seven hours for some people.

At 6:45 am here were 49 people without power according to the Burlington Hydro web site.

Hydro outage map

Red hat identifies unplanned outage area. No specific boundary area detail was available.

The cause of the outage was described as “weather”

The Gazette will touch base with Hydro when media staff there show up for work and look for a more detailed explanation.

 

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1 comment to Downtown Burlington experiences unplanned hydro outages

  • Penny Hersh

    Could there be an infrastructure problem? With all the new development going on in the downtown core can Burlington Hydro handle the additional condos. The Berkley is now complete and occupied.

    Construction has already started for Carriage Gate’s “Gallery” on Brant Street and James Street, and we wait to hear about the Reserve Property appeal on the other corner of James/Brant Street.

    The Blue Water development across from the Lake with 2 condo buildings and a hotel is not yet occupied. The ADI 26 storey Building ” Nautique”, located at Lakeshore and Martha Street has not as yet started construction, but will be starting shortly.

    The proposed Carriage Gate 26 storey building on the corner of Pearl and Lakeshore Road has started the process of being approved, not to mention the 2 proposed towers in what is described as “The Football” near old Lakeshore Road, and the proposed 11 Storey Building on Pine and Martha Street,

    The other proposed developments on Martha near the Bicycle Path and the proposed development on James and Martha are also looming.

    I think it may be time for those living in single family dwellings or townhouses to purchase generators.

    Unfortunately in condos, there are emergency generators that supply emergency lighting in hallways, stairwells, and allows one elevator to work. Condo owners sit in the dark as well and depending on the weather have no heat, air conditioning or light. Extended electricity outages cause issues with the heating/air conditioning systems, the pumps that push the water to the units on the higher floors and this results in the inability to shower, or use the bathrooms, or get any drinking water etc. Problems one does not anticipate when purchasing a condo on the higher floors.

    it is also interesting that Burlington Hydro tweets and Facebooks their outage and suggested times to have the problem fixed. Unfortunately with no internet it is not possible to get this information. If you happen to have an old style telephone land line ( which I do as a backup) that does not require any electricity to work you can then attempt to call Burlington Hydro and wait, and wait, and wait for an update. Also not everyone has access to a smart phone.

    Let’s not forget that the Municipalities decided where the “Growth Centres” would be not the Province. The same was the case with Metrolinx – the Municipalities decided where the anchor/mobility hubs would be located and Burlington gave Metrolinx more than they were asked for.

    There was an opportunity in 2017 for Burlington to change the location and number of mobility hubs as the city was in the process of updating their Official Plan. The Council at that time (2017) chose not to.

    I think that we are in for more of this. I have to wonder who will absorb the cost to upgrade the infrastructure that will be needed to accommodate all these new developments?

    Perhaps this should have thought through 8 years ago, when there was the opportunity to make changes and have controlled planning in the downtown core.