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Hydro One making good progress on power restoration

Nov. 8, 2005 - Hydro One made substantial headway today restoring power to thousands of customers who lost electricity service during Sunday's severe storm. Approximately 20,000 customers are still without power this afternoon, most in the Muskoka, Huntsville, Parry Sound, and Penetang areas. While the majority will have power by midnight tonight, about 10,000 could be out overnight. Many of these customers are seasonal residents (cottagers) in remote locations. Hydro One expects full restoration by 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Crews are finding substantially more damage (hundreds of broken poles, downed lines, damaged transformers and other equipment) than originally thought, much of it in difficult-to-access off-road areas. This has slowed restoration significantly.

Hydro One has about 750 personnel from its own workforce, temporary employees and local utility staff working on power restoration including over 300 in the four heavily damaged areas. As crews complete restoration elsewhere in the province they are redeployed to these areas with significant outages. Emergency crews will be available throughout the night, and all crews will be working starting at 6 a.m. tomorrow.

Updates will be provided to media throughout the evening. For the most recent information on power outages go to www.HydroOneNetworks.com.

The public is advised to stay away from downed power lines.

Hydro One owns and operates Ontario's 28,400 kilometre high-voltage transmission network that delivers electricity to large industrial customers and municipal utilities, and a 122,000 kilometre low-voltage distribution system that serves about 1.2 million end-use customers and smaller municipal utilities in the province. Hydro One is wholly owned by the Ontario Government.

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For more information, contact Hydro One Media Relations 24 hours a day at 1-877-506-7584 (toll-free in Ontario only) or 416-345-6868. Our Web site is www.HydroOne.com.