Power has been restored to all but a very few Kitchener-Wilmot Hydro customers, and attention is now turning to tallying up the cost of repairing the damage done by last Friday’s storm.
Wilf Meston, vice-president of operations at Kitchener-Wilmot Hydro, estimates the total repair bill at around $300,000.
It’s a lot of money, and it comes on the heels of $400,000 spent on cleanup and repair work after this spring’s ice storm.
“These last two events … have been the biggest events that I can remember,” Meston tells CTV.
While last week’s storm did leave more people without power than the ice storm, Meston says the damage to hydro poles and other infrastructure was more significant in the ice storm.
At the City of Kitchener, storm costs are limited to overtime pay for crews called in to help clean up fallen trees.
“I’m not aware of any major building problems that were caused for the city,” says Mayor Carl Zehr.
“Obviously the inventory of trees has diminished.”
The city currently budgets for winter storm cleanup each year, but has no similar protocol for summer storm cleanup.
Zehr says he doesn’t see a need to budget specifically for annual summer storm cleanup unless a regular pattern of storms like last week’s emerges.
“I think it’s probably premature to say that we actually have to have a special fund for these storms,” he says.
As electricity rates are subject to the approval of the Ontario Energy Board, Kitchener-Wilmot Hydro would need to prove a similar pattern of weather before being allowed to go ahead with a summer storm cleanup fund of their own, Meston says.
As a result, according to Meston, Kitchener-Wilmot Hydro may have to defer some projects into 2014 to accommodate this week’s cleanup costs.
