VIDEO: What Caused the Explosion That Knocked Out Power in Mississauga?

Mississauga | Ontario | Latest News |

Published October 9, 2018 at 8:30 pm

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On Oct. 3, a massive–and somewhat visually spectacular–explosion took out power in a large swath of Mississauga’s City Centre neighbourhood.

According to Peel police, officers received a call shortly before 7:50 p.m. about a light pole going out in the Hurontario Street area.

As a result, 3,259 homes and businesses lost power from Burnhamthorpe Rd. E. to Dundas St. E.

A Twitter user named Prashant Thankappan posted the following video of the explosion, which you can see at the 21 and 25 second marks.

So, what caused the explosion?

According to Alectra Utilities, the Oct. 3 disruption was caused by equipment anomalies.

Alectra says that while these events are rare and infrequent, they can be caused by various factors including:

  • Supply/transmission issues
  • Cable faults (underground or overhead)
  • Transformer malfunction

As for what, exactly, caused the incident, Alectra says the circumstances behind the explosion (and the equipment in general) are complex.

The explosion is still being investigated by the company’s operations team.

However, Alectra is working to upgrade infrastructure in Mississauga to improve reliability. 

“We are currently upgrading infrastructure in Mississauga and across our entire service territory to improve reliability,” says Rachel Bertone, media spokesperson, Alectra Utilities. 

“In fact, in 2017 Alectra invested $250 million in infrastructure upgrades. Safety is our top priority, if customers come across any fallen wires they are to stay at least three metres away (the length of a school bus) and call us immediately.”

 

Residents who experience an outage or see fallen wires are encouraged to contact Alectra here.

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