Storms, Winnipeg squirrel knock out power to thousands in southern Manitoba

Manitoba Hydro crews were busy working to restore power to more than 12,000 customers Fridayafter storms and a lone squirrel knocked power out in Winnipeg and parts of the south of the province.

About 3,000 customers in Winnipeg were without power in the morningafter a squirrel snuck into a substation in The Maples and caused a short in theneighbourhood, said Hydro spokesperson Scott Powell.

Powell said animal-related outages happen every day andsquirrels and crows are the most common culprits.

About 2,000 in Winklerand just under 1,800 in Altonaalso lost power, as did 1,600 in Steinbach, 1,560in Stanley and 1,150 in Rhineland. Hundreds more in Stuartburn, Argyle, Dufferin, Hanover, De Salaberryand Montcalm were also affected.

Crews restored power in Winnipeg to about 10,400 others by noon Friday.

Environment Canada called off a series of severe thunderstorm warnings in the west, southwest and south-central part of the province at about 6:30 a.m. CT after lightning and rain storms died down.

Storm-chaser Misheyla Iwasiukpulled over to take photos of"deafening" lightning shooting out from ominous clouds northeast of Boissevain, Man., at about 12 a.m.

"It's been a while since I've seen a lightning show that intense, and it was a little scary because it was surrounding us on all sides," she said.

"It was like non-stop cloud-to-cloud lightning, and then of course cloud-to-ground strikes in between which were absolutely beautiful. My eyes still hurt a little bit from last night because it was so bright."

Updated information about outages is available on the Manitoba Hydro website.