Kimmirut under state of emergency after 3 days without electricity
QEC reports ‘complete power loss’ in hamlet occurred Thursday
Qaqqalik School in Kimmirut, seen in this file photo, is being used as a warming centre while the hamlet deals with a widespread electricity outage that began Thursday. The Government of Nunavut says a state of emergency it declared Saturday will allow it to assign its assets to help people while Qulliq Energy Corp. restores power. (File photo by David Venn)
The Government of Nunavut declared a state of emergency in Kimmirut on Saturday, three days after the hamlet experienced what the government called a “complete community power loss.”
On Thursday, Qulliq Energy Corp., Nunavut’s electricity provider, reported the power loss, a GN news release issued Saturday afternoon said.
What the government called “limited backup power” was available, it added, and a warming centre has been set up at Qaqqalik School.
On Saturday afternoon, QEC reported on the social media platform X that “electricians are making progress” in identifying the cause of the outage, mechanics had made repairs to an emergency unit, and additional crews were in Iqaluit waiting to leave the city to travel to Kimmirut.
During the day, the temperature was about -7 C. Environment and Climate Change Canada forecasts a low of -9 C Saturday night with a wind chill bringing the temperature to -17 C overnight.
Department of Community and Government Services and Petroleum Products Division staff were working to ensure buildings with generators, including the airport, health centre, water treatment plant and school, have enough fuel to keep going.
Later Saturday, the Health Department announced reduced services at the health centre because of the outage. The health centre remained open for emergencies and urgent same-day appointments, a public service announcement said.
The community on the south side of Baffin Island, about 125 kilometres southwest of Iqaluit, has a population of approximately 475 people.
Declaring a state of emergency allows the government to “expedite” the steps it needs to take to provide support to the Hamlet of Kimmirut. It also gives the GN more authority to assign its own assets and those of public agencies to assist with the emergency.
A state of emergency is a temporary measure. In this case, it will be in effect for 14 days, the GN said.
David Joanasie, the area’s MLA and Minister of Community and Government Services, said his department has been supporting QEC “to try and restore power as soon as possible.”
“As power is restored and assets are brought online, they will better understand what the required resources will be needed to address any damages,” Joanasie wrote Saturday morning in a Facebook message addressed to the people of Kimmirut.
Joanasie thanked the people working to help others during the emergency and said updates will be provided as they become available.
QEC issued a reminder on X for people in Kimmirut to ensure their electronics, stovetops, burners and ovens are off to prevent fires when electricity is restored.
In Iqaluit, QEC cancelled a planned outage for part of the city so that some workers could be diverted to Kimmirut to help there.
Wow took three days to get this published. We knew about it almost immediately from outside of Kimmirut. GN has dropped the ball on offering assistance. They will say it’s the hamlet’s responsibility with their emergency plan.
I think the 3 day mark is about right as they would have to compile all cases. The real problem for QEC is that if they knew Kimmirut was running on one good generator and the backup generator wasn’t ready, then it becomes a real big problem. QEC was waiting for this to happen as we all know that anything could fail, it was unexpected though, but it did happen. The power failure is not due to mother nature with weather, it’s a failure of having good backup. We are just very fortunate that this did not happen in the dead of the winter or with colder temperatures, otherwise there would be much bigger problems with no heat and freeze ups. I don’t think the Centre would able to hold 500 people at the same time.
We are hoping that proper normal restore of power is coming soon. From my point of view QEC could be liable for such a failure and hope they have good backup plans going forward.
Hamlet is supposed have a plan in place just in case this [stuff] happened but GN dropped the ball
🙄
Both the municipality and the GN have roles in disasters like this, and does QEC.
Managing a situation like this is most effective through maintenance and capital renewal.
Stakeholders need to do an After action analysis to identify the failure points and address them needs to be completed.
An unexpected total loss of power at this time of year should have been an emergency within hours, not days.
This is a good opportunity for Emergency planners to start considering the benefit of local battery storage, renewable energy and user to grid energy transfers via EV adoption.
Resilience in Nunavut will need to look different than the RoC.