Copper theft cause of widespread outage Monday evening

Monday evening around 9 p.m., a widespread power outage occurred impacting neighbourhoods in east and north Red Deer. Crews identified that copper wire theft was the cause.

“We cannot emphasize enough how dangerous stealing copper wire is as it often results in life threatening or life ending injuries for the thief,” said Vince Gibbons, Electrical Distribution Supervisor. “This also puts extra risk on our staff who work to restore power as quickly as possible, but with infrastructure that’s been tampered.”

RCMP are investigating this theft. Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call Red Deer RCMP.

Power was restored to most areas by 11 p.m. last night, however a few locations in the area of Taylor Drive and 60 Street were without power until 5:30 a.m. today.

As of 8:30 a.m. this morning, crews are responding to another power outage impacting north Red Deer. The cause of this outage is under investigation and at this time, we do not have an estimated time for restoration. More information on what to do during an outage can be found here: reddeer.ca/power