Enwin Utilities in Windsor is still trying to restore power to thousands of customers in the city, but crews are making progress.
President and CEO Gary Rossi said at the peak of Wednesday night's ice storm, 25,000 customers were without power.
"As you can imagine, just when you think you've got that customer back on, another tree limb falls," said Rossi. "It was a constant barrage of hits on our system."
As of 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, the number was down to 2,000.
Rossi said last night the priority was rerouting power so customers wouldn't spend the night in the dark.
"Now we're focused on where is the major damage and what can we do to get the rest of these customers back up," he said.
Rossi urges customers to watch the utility's Twitter feed for updates.
In the county, E.L.K. Energy's offices shut down on Thursday morning when it lost power.
Our office is without hydro and will be closed for the day. As such, our phone lines and internet are not in service. If you need to report an outage please use Twitter.
— E.L.K. Energy Inc. (@elkenergyinc) February 23, 2023
It brought in contractors to resume work to restore power in Essex, Lakeshore and Kingsville. E.L.K Energy crews will resume at 4 p.m.
Having worked all night our crews are on mandatory sleep time. We have reached out to our private contractors to get extra help. Full crews will resume work at 4pm to attempt restoration.
— E.L.K. Energy Inc. (@elkenergyinc) February 23, 2023
Hydro One isn't just working to restore power to customers in Essex County. It's trying to fix outages across Southern and Eastern Ontario.
Our crews are responding to outages in parts of southwest and southern Ontario caused by the winter storm. Customers can report outages by texting 92887 (WATTS), through our outage map and app, or by calling 1-800-434-1235. For updates visit: https://t.co/U1ORLVxczX #ONStorm pic.twitter.com/aEBZDiVz05
— Hydro One (@HydroOne) February 23, 2023
Spokesperson Tiziana Baccega said 32,000 customers were still out this morning across Essex County, Kent County, and Aylmer.
She said there are 588 outages throughout a large geographic area, so it may take crews time to get to all of them.
Baccega couldn't provide a timeline for restoration because the damage is still being assessed.
With files from Ruby Sweeney.
