All power has been restored in the uptown core.
All power has been restored to the uptown area just in time for Saint John Sparkles and the Mayor’s tree lighting! Take some time tonight to enjoy the Christmas lights, take in the festive mood and support our uptown merchants! #LoveLifeUptown #UptownSparklesSJ
— Saint John Energy (@SJENERGY) December 7, 2018
A power outage in the uptown core impacting more than 1000 people this morning and will continue to impact 70 customers including Brunswick Square and parts of the Bell Aliant tower all day today.
The lights went out around 9 a.m. and impacted our offices on King Street at Country 94 and The Wave for about 30 minutes.
The lights are back at 58 King street. pic.twitter.com/UXhFOW4Z8P
— Tamara Steele (@tamarasteele1) December 7, 2018
Dave Horgan of Saint John Energy tells us the cause of the outage was the failure of an underground switch at the corner of Wellington Row and Union Street.
“It was a gas switch that failed and it caused a fair amount of smoke. When the smoke filled the vault, they had to wait for the smoke to clear before they could do some switching and restore power to some customers,” Horgan said.
There are some folks still impacted on Germain street as well. Horgan says the estimated restoration time for those who are still without power is 5 p.m. today.
The City Market was only without power for about 20 minutes.
Saint John High lost power for a while. A lot of students waited out the outage in the mall, some playing Christmas carols on a piano set up on level 1.
The Saint John City Market has power. And coffee! pic.twitter.com/pmVYz0wPka
— Tamara Steele (@tamarasteele1) December 7, 2018