Sealift unloading accident causes power outage in Pangnirtung

This story was updated on Thursday, July 30, at 11:15 a.m. ET

An accident that occurred while offloading from a sealift has left the hamlet office and community hall in Pangnirtung without power and IT services.

On July 24, at around 8:45 p.m., an employee for a sealift operator drove a trailer with a high load near the community hall, where they snagged a power line, said deputy Mayor Markus Wilcke in an interview.

“Two poles were torn down, the cables broke, three transformers hit the road and we actually had some leakage of the transformer liquid as well,” he said.

It’s unclear which shipping company was responsible for the damage.

Initially, the entire community experienced a power outage, Wilcke said.

Within 50 minutes, local crews restored power to an area that included Government of Nunavut offices and the Co-op, according to an emailed statement from the Qulliq Energy Corp.

QEC chartered a flight into Pangnirtung, arriving shortly after midnight. Crews replaced the two power poles and, by 10 a.m. July 25, they restored power for the area that includes the Northern store, RCMP detachment and airport.

An environmental engineer who is visiting the community worked with the shipping company to isolate contamination from the transformer liquid, Wilcke said. Eight cubic metres of contaminated soil was dug up with a backhoe, stored in specialized bags and loaded onto the ship.

“Everybody did actually an amazing job,” he said. “There was excellent teamwork.”

The energy corporation echoed the sentiment.

“QEC also recognizes the dedication and professionalism of its local power plant operators, who responded immediately to the incident, as well as the power line crew dispatched from Iqaluit, whose swift efforts enabled power to be restored safely to the community,” the email from QEC said.

But the hamlet office and community hall, which are located in the same building, are still mostly offline because the cables were “literally torn out of the fuse panel,” Wilcke said.

Despite the damage, the finance department managed to finish payroll, which “was kind of considered an emergency,” Wilcke said, “because people like to get paid — on time.”

The hamlet was still waiting as of Wednesday for out-of-town electricians to assess the damage, for Northwestel to restore the phone and internet lines and for QEC to connect the buildings to the electrical poles, Wilcke said.

The community hall remained closed, and all events scheduled to take place there have been cancelled or postponed.

Wilcke said he expects everything to be fixed early next week.

In an emailed statement, he said he isn’t sure how much this incident will cost, but that it “is expected to be substantial.”

Clarification: This story has been updated to remove the name of a shipping company that was in Pangnirtung July 22 through 24, because more than one sealift was scheduled to be in Pangnirtung’s port on the date of the incident.