NTPC are investigating after “an issue” with a Fort McPherson generator and insufficient back-up battery power caused a community-wide outage in the Inuvik region hamlet.
The outage saw students sent home from school on Friday morning.
“Due to the power outage students will be sent home this morning. The school phones are not working. Teachers will try and contact parents from cell phones to let them know their child is coming home. We will have an update at noon. If there is still no power in the community there will be no school for the afternoon as it is a safety concern,” representatives from Chief Julius School posted Friday morning.
NTPC communicated updates via their social media page throughout Friday, letting Fort McPherson community members know that a crew from the town of Inuvik was en route.
“A maintenance crew from Inuvik should be arriving at the local plant soon to investigate and make any necessary repairs. Unfortunately we can’t provide an estimate of when power will be restored but we will keep customers updated as progress is made.”
Temperatures hovered between 3 and minus 1 degrees on Friday.
The outage was reported by NTPC just after 10 a.m. and power was restored just before 2 p.m.
“An issue with one of the three generators at the local plant caused the unit to go offline and there was insufficient battery power available to bring another unit online. An investigation into the root cause is still underway,” said NTPC.
True North FM has reached out to NTPC for more details about the investigation and will share that information when it becomes available.
