Power returns to thousands of customers in Ottawa following afternoon outage

A Hydro Ottawa vehicle is seen in this undated photo. (CTV Ottawa)

Power has been restored to most homes and businesses in Nepean and across eastern Ontario following a major outage Saturday afternoon.

Hydro Ottawa reported that 27,000 customers were without electricity at 12:45 p.m. in an area bordered by the 416 in the west, the Ottawa River in the north, West Hunt Club Road in the south and Merivale Road.

The utility said a loss of supply from the provincial grid was to blame for the outage.

“We are working with Hydro One to ensure power is restored as quickly & safely as possible,” Hydro Ottawa said in a tweet, adding crews were performing emergency switching to restore power as it waited for the provincial supply to return.

Power was restored to most customers by 5 p.m., according to the Hydro Ottawa outage map. Hydro Ottawa said some customers may remain without power in the west end until later this evening.

THOUSANDS OUT IN EASTERN ONTARIO

Hydro One reported thousands of customers to the west and south of Hydro Ottawa territory without power. The cause of the outages is unknown.

More than 5,000 customers in rural west Ottawa had lost power, but most had it restored quickly. More than 6,600 in Arnprior lost power, but the outage was over by 1:45 p.m.

More than 2,300 customers in Greely are also without power. Their estimated time of restoration was 3 p.m.