CALEB NICKERSON
L’ISLE AUX ALLUMETTES July 8, 2020
After a record-setting year for power outages in 2019, residents of L’Isle aux Allumettes are having a much better go of it in the first six months of 2020.
So far this year, there have been . . .
19 outages, a significant decrease from last year’s total of 28 over the same time period.
David Gillespie, a local farmer who has closely tracked the region’s numerous outages since 2009 and also provided the data to The Equity, said that the decline in outages was striking.
“We had 22 alone in July last year,” he said. “This year, barring a major tsunami or something, it seems we’re going to be within the average.”
The results from 2020 are below the 10 year average recorded between 2009 and 2018, (19 outages over six months compared to 54 outages for a year, and 398 minutes over six months compared to an average of 2,444 for a year).
Gillespie pointed out that the majority of this year’s outages (68 per cent) were a minute or less, the best result in that regard since 2010. He added that there hadn’t been any disruptions recorded for a period of nearly two months, between April 14 and June 9, which was definitely noticeable, even for those that aren’t keeping close tabs on the matter.
Gillespie monitors one of two power lines that service the upper Pontiac, Line 221, which covers the majority of the L’Isle aux Allumettes’ territory. The other, Line 224, services Chichester, Sheenboro and the village of Chapeau, but Gillespie said that he checks with other residents in those areas to ensure the data is more or less equal.
“I’ve been following 224 and it’s been quite comparable,” he said. “When we had some outages from storms, chances are they did too … I’ve been keeping tabs.”
He said that even though many of the disruptions were short, they are still a major nuisance for businesses and residents in the area. He gave the example of the local Caisse Populaire, which has to reset its computer system after every outage.
“It was a real pain in the butt for them,” he said.
In 2016, after a massive power surge caused tens of thousands in damages across the region, the municipality called several emergency meetings to discuss the urgent need to address the issue.
At a meeting that August, one resident spoke about how her husband required a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine to breathe at night, and the couple required a generator to keep it going during outages.
L’Isle aux Allumettes Mayor Winston Sunstrum said that he was pleased with a downturn in disruptions this year after such a disastrous 2019.
“Yeah, it’s been noticeable for me and for a few people,” he said. “I think Hydro Quebec (HQ) has made some equipment improvements and it looks like it’s panned out well.”
He said that the last time he heard from HQ representatives was at the beginning of the year when they attended an MRC council meeting to discuss their planned work across the region. He said he had invited the representatives up to Chapeau to discuss the Upper Pontiac’s particular issues in more depth, but that meeting had been delayed by the pandemic.
Gillespie said that the months of June and July are typically some of the worst for outages, but barring a bad storm, the region was on track for a great year.
“It will depends on this heatwave, are we going to get more storms because of this heatwave?” he said. “Who knows?”
“For now we’ve been without a major storm, so that’s certainly helped with the outages,” Sunstrum said, adding that they would likely be meeting with HQ again as soon as the pandemic restrictions ease, though if there was a surge in outages, they would be requesting something sooner.
THE EQUITY contacted HQ for comment, but they did not respond in time for print.
