Sault Ste. Marie Power Outages Restored After 34,000-Affected Outage

Power outages in Sault Ste. Marie and Prince Township were fully restored by 12:18 p.m. after more than 34,000 homes and businesses lost electricity shortly before 11 a.m. PUC Services said service was back across all four outages listed on its website.

By 11:54 a.m., PUC said 75 per cent of customers had power again. The utility said restoration would happen in stages so crews could restore service safely and effectively.

PUC Services and Hydro One

PUC Services said the outage related to its supply of electricity, not its distribution system, and said it was working with Hydro One on the issue. That left the utility managing a citywide disruption through its supply side while crews brought customers back online in phases.

The outage hit a large share of the city at once, which is why the utility did not restore every customer at the same moment. For people in the affected area, the practical change came when their own service returned and the utility website moved all four outages to restored.

Algoma Power Outage

A separate, brief outage affected around 30 customers north of the city starting at 10:44 a.m., according to Algoma Power. That outage was back on by 11 a.m., leaving the larger Sault Ste. Marie event as the more significant disruption of the morning.

For residents and businesses in Sault Ste. Marie, the main takeaway was that power returned the same morning after a staggered restoration process. PUC said it had yet to say what caused the issue, and the utility’s sequence of updates showed the outage clearing in steps before the full restoration at 12:18 p.m.