Power mostly restored after outage affects thousands in Gatineau

Hydro towers in Quebec. (The Canadian Press)

Hydro-Québec says power has been largely restored after an extensive outage affected thousands of Gatineau residents on Tuesday.

The outage began at 11:15 a.m. after a mobile conveyor belt made contact with hydro lines, the company says. About 56,000 customers, mainly in the Aylmer and Hull sectors, were affected.

The power company says it had been able to restore power to affected residents starting in the afternoon. 

"We will attempt to restore service to customers still experiencing outages over the next few hours using other lines on our network," Hydro-Québec said in a post to social media shortly before 2:10 p.m.

Around 250 customers remained without electricity as of 8:15 p.m. The remaining affected customers were expected to have power restored Tuesday evening.

Gatineau police were on scene in affected areas during the day, directing traffic where traffic lights were down.

"When the lights are not working, we remind you that you must make a mandatory stop before entering the intersection," police said.

Police encouraged drivers to plan their trips and to expect delays.