Boil advisory hard to follow when power outage hits some Winnipeg neighbourhoods

WINNIPEG — Insult was added to injury in Winnipeg when thousands of people already facing a city-wide boil-water advisory couldn’t turn on their stoves because of a power outage.

About 9,000 Manitoba Hydro customers were left in the dark Wednesday evening when a power pole in a northwest neighbourhood caught fire.

Around 4,000 people were brought back online shortly after 9 p.m., but the rest had to wait until very early Thursday morning before their service was restored.

There’s no word on the cause of the fire, but repair crews had to rebuild the pole.

The boil advisory, which sparked a run on bottled water, was issued on Tuesday after routine testing found coliform and E. coli at extremely low levels in six of 39 water samples.

Officials are hoping another round of tests expected Thursday will confirm the city’s water supply is safe and allow them to lift the advisory.

Further testing came back clean on Wednesday but regulations require two clean tests in a row before the all-clear can be declared.

Mayor Brian Bowman said the city’s experts have concluded it’s likely the original samples were false-positives.