Photo courtesy of laronge.ca
Following yesterday evening’s power outage, La Ronge, Air Ronge and the adjacent Lac La Ronge Indian Band reserves are now under a precautionary boil water advisory, which will remain in effect until further notice.
SaskPower’s Heather Johnson says the outage happened when a car struck a power pole.
She says the pole had to be completely replaced and many of the areas affected were without power for several hours.
“The fire department needed to come in and do their work because the safety of the passengers in the vehicle was the first priority,” said Johnson.
“Once they were taken care of fire crews then had to deal with a grass fire caused by the accident, so once it was safe to do so SaskPower crews were able to get in and get the pole replaced.”
Power was restored at around 10:15pm last night and around 3200 customers were affected.
No word from the RCMP yet if anyone was injured in the incident.
The outage resulted in a depressurization of the water system in the La Ronge area.
People who use water from the La Ronge system for drinking are advised to boil it for one minute.
The same applies to water used for things like brushing teeth, dish-washing, and washing fruits and vegetables. Taps should also be flushed until the water is clear.