On Jan. 8, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) presented Hydro One with an Emergency Assistance Award for its assistance following the severe snowstorm that hit Manitoba in October, causing significant damage to its grid that resulted in power outages for hundreds of thousands of customers.

The Emergency Assistance Award is presented to EEI member companies for outstanding emergency response efforts and assistance provided to other electric companies following severe weather or other natural events. Winners are selected by a panel of judges following an international nomination process. This is Hydro One’s 10^th award from EEI for assistance during storm restoration.

Following the storm, Hydro One sent 25 employees to join the restoration efforts alongside crews from Manitoba Power and several other utilities. Hydro One has reciprocal agreements in place with North American utilities to aid during significant outages.

“This was the largest restoration in our company’s history. It required the replacement over 4,000 wood poles and stringing of about 950 kilometres of new overhead power lines,” said Jay Grewal, president and CEO of Manitoba Hydro. “I’m very proud of our employees and thank our partners like Hydro One for the work they did under such challenging conditions to get our customers back on.”