Seven homes in Black Tickle were without power from Feb. 16 to Feb. 19.
Joe Keefe, chair of the local service district (LSD), contacted NL Hydro about it and weather prevented them from getting in quicker.
Some of the homes have generators, Keefe said, but that won’t heat a home and burns gas.
“Only so much a generator can do,” he said. “If I had to run my house on a generator it wouldn’t give me heat. I have a big generator but it wouldn’t handle that.”
Gas can be a precious commodity in Black Tickle in the winter, since the only supplier pulled out in 2015. Now all gasoline and furnace fuel has to be stockpiled for the winter and topped up by snowmobile runs across the ice to Cartwright.
The LSD is currently out of fuel, but Keefe said they’ve adapted to the changes and will figure something out. He has contacted MHA Lisa Dempster on the matter, he said.
Keefe said one of the homes now without power has a senior living in that requires oxygen, who had to go stay with her daughter until the power is restored.
“She has a generator but that’s very inconvenient, it isn’t going to work very well in bad weather,” he said. “She needs power 24/7.”
He said not having power can lead to a lot of issues, including frozen food starting to spoil and in a community that can only be accessed by snowmobile or air in the winter, that’s a big concern.
“People stock up for the winter, you don’t have much of a choice. You don’t want it to spoil, you can’t replace it.”
The Labradorian reached out to NL Hydro for an update and was told they managed to get the issue fixed on Feb. 19, despite the weather conditions.
