Fort Smith sets up warming shelter as power outage lasts into evening
The Town of Fort Smith is turning its community and recreation centre at 108 King Street into an emergency warming shelter as an off-and-on power outage stretches into the evening.
Power first went out to the entire community of about 2,460 people at roughly 1:30 p.m. Friday. It was restored to most of the town about half an hour later, but Northwest Territories Power Corporation technicians have struggled to restore power to the area that includes the airport, parts of downtown and Fort Fitzgerald.
By 4:24 p.m., the community was back under a full power outage, the power corporation posted in an update to Facebook.
In an update just before 6 p.m., the power corporation said it is still experiencing generation issues at the power plant in Fort Smith. The power corporation said it had no timeline for full restoration, but it could take several hours.
"Efforts are underway to resolve these issues and bring additional generation capacity online," it wrote.
"Until this is accomplished, the reliability of electricity service will remain uncertain."
Temperatures in Fort Smith hovered around –26 C at 6 p.m. Friday. The overnight low is –29 C.
Fort Smith Protective Services is expected to issue an update at around 7 p.m. MT if conditions change. The town's emergency warming shelter will be open until 11 p.m. or later, Protective Services wrote in a Facebook post.
"Please check with family and friends to ensure their safety as we wait for updates regarding the restoration efforts," it wrote.
The emergency warming shelter can be reached at 867-872-8228.
