INUVIK - A damaged ground fault is to blame for a power surge that fried a number of electronic devices in town on Friday afternoon, according to Mike Bradshaw, NWT Power Corp. spokesman.

Lavona Clarke, an employee at Originals on Mackenzie, displays the business' fax machine and power bar that were fried during Friday's power surge. - Andrew Rankin/NNSL photo

Bradshaw said as of Tuesday afternoon 15 customer claims had been submitted to the NTPC Inuvik office looking for repair or replacement of various electronic devices, from TVs to charred power bars. Bradshaw said the power corp. has hired local contractors to repair damaged items, adding other bigger items will be repaired or replaced as quickly as possible, though he couldn't provide an approximate time line.

An unidentified power corp. employee told Inuvik Drum on Tuesday that their office phones were flooded with calls from angry customers.

Lorne Browne is the Inuvik facilities manager for the GNWT. He said four government buildings were affected by the power surge, including the Mac Travel Building and its carpenter shop, where several items including computers, fax machines, a drill and power bars were seriously damaged. He said a list would be compiled of damaged items and forwarded to the power corp. for repair or replacement.

He said he's concerned about the string of outages that have occurred since the all-day blackout on Sept. 28.

"We'll wait to hear what they say but these many outages in such a short period of time is unusual," said Browne."We're definitely concerned, there's no doubt about that."

Lavona Clarke, an employee of Originals on Mackenzie, said the surge caused a power bar in the store to catch on fire and also damaged the office fax machine.

On Tuesday she submitted a claim to the power corp. office. She said the burning power bar might have set fire to the building if there was no one in the store. However, she said she's fine with the service she gets from the power corp., adding mistakes happen.

"They're doing the best job they can, which we all try to do in our jobs."

Bradshaw said the surge affected only two of the five distribution lines providing power to the town and emergency crews fixed that problem. They also continue to work to fix the natural gas plant's computer system. The computer has been malfunctioning and causing outages in the town since the original blackout. Bradshaw said crews are close to repairing the problem.

As for the surge, Bradshaw said it's a rare occurrence but it does happen.

"Electricity travels at the speed of light but we pride ourselves on delivering it safely. I've been in the business for 15 years. They happen everywhere."

The power corp. has hired Orbis Engineering Field Services out of Edmonton to do a complete review of the town's power plants following the Sept. 28 blackout.

Bradshaw said he wasn't sure when the study will be finished but that a copy of the review will be submitted to town council.

"We need to get to the root cause of this and make sure it doesn't happen again," he said of the blackout.

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