MooseFM has reports that the power is back on at the Legion Branch 181 as of 1 p.m.
Earlier:
Voting is currently underway at the Bancroft Legion Branch 181 but it’s a little bit darker in there than usual.
Since Wednesday night, both Hydro and election workers have been hard at work getting the Legion building up and running so that it can support today’s polling station, after the power went out unexpectedly last night.
The Bancroft polling station is currently running on battery operated lights, while Hydro workers say they expect the power to be back on in the building by this afternoon.
Despite the challenges there was a steady stream of people lining up to vote just after the polls opened this morning, while volunteers and Elections Ontario staff navigated the power-outage curveball with grace and good humor.
Some Election workers had arrived early this moring to set up in the dark, while a skeleton crew had been onsite the night before navigating the set up without power.
Out on the street, Hydro Line Supervisor Brian Thompson explained to Moose FM that issues with the power line leading underground to the building were the cause of the outage.
“An underground cable from the road feeding the legion faulted, including (cutting power to) another business as well.”
Something called a ‘sucker truck’ (which is a more precise way of accessing the cables than a back-hoe) was digging down to access the problem area.
The truck uses pressurized water and a vacuum system to quickly expose underground infrastructure. During the process, a jet stream is injected into the ground through a handheld tube and wand.
The powerful machine comes in handy in winter when the frozen ground makes it hard to dig into with shovels.
Be sure to visit MyBancroftNow.com or tune in to CHMS 97.7 for up-to-date local coverage of the election, starting tonight at 8 p.m.
