Thousands of people in and around Stratford were without power for a period of time Friday morning.

City officials in Stratford said the outage was due to a man who had climbed a hydro tower outside city limits.

In those circumstances, standard protocol is to shut down power.

Police officers were also on-scene on Perth Line 122 to try and bring the man back to ground level safely.

That happened a little after 10:15 a.m., according to officials.

According to Hydro One, the outage extended into areas around Mitchell and New Hamburg, and service was expected to be restored by noon.