CBC

Thu Jan 18, 8:51 am

Lights go out in Quebec

More than 200,000 Hydro Quebec customers became unhappy customers Wednesday night, when an equipment failure at a James Bay power plant plunged much of the province into darkness.

The lights began going out during the supper rush hour as commuters were heading home from work, forcing police officers into traffic duty.

Large pockets of Montreal lost power, as did parts of Laval to the north, as well as several communities along the south shore.

Hydro Quebec said crews were scrambling to fix a main transmission line that feeds 12 substations.

And about two hours after the lights went out, they slowly starting coming on again.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), January 18, 2001