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Hydro One works to restore power to remaining 35,000 customers

July 19, 2006, 4:00 p.m. — Hydro One's efforts to repair damage caused by Monday's severe summer storm continued through out the day. The company has restored power to 135,000 customers since early Tuesday morning.

• Almost one thousand Hydro One field staff have been mobilized and deployed to deal with the aftermath of the storm
• Five helicopters will continue to conduct aerial surveys to assess the nature and extent of system damage so that restoration work can be prioritized and appropriate crews and materials dispatched.
• Hydro One crews have reported more than 300 broken poles; over 200,000 meters of downed wire (or 200 kilometers); almost 200 transformers to be replaced; and, thousands of fallen trees on lines. It is expected these numbers will continue to grow.
• Hydro One crews in unaffected or restored areas will continue to be redeployed to reinforce restoration efforts in the areas hardest hit by the storm, including Nipissing, Manitoulin, Newmarket, Fenelon Falls, Peterborough, and Cobden.

Hydro One has prioritized its work so that repairs undertaken to date ensured the highest possible number of customers were returned to service with each job. The net result has been a restoration rate of approximately 5,000 customers back on line every hour since early Tuesday morning. While great gains have been made, going forward, remaining repairs are likely to net fewer numbers of customers per job. Hydro One estimates that given the nature of the damage and associated repair work, power restoration in the hardest hit areas will continue into the weekend.

"We are acutely aware of how difficult this outage has been for our customers and the communities we serve," said Myles D'Arcey, Senior Vice President, Customer Operations. We will continue to work around the clock and deploy all available crews to the hardest hit areas to resolve all outstanding outages."

To aid in the restoration of a reliable supply of electricity, customers are asked to turn off all major appliances. The public is advised to stay away from downed power lines.

For the most recent information on power outages go to www.HydroOneNetworks.com.

Hydro One owns and operates Ontario's 28,400 kilometers 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 and to make arrangements for photography, 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.