Entegrus employees from Chatham and St. Thomas are helping Hydro One with ice storm restoration efforts in the Alliston area, northeast of Toronto.
Entegrus Vice President of Engineering and Operations Tomo Matesic told CKNewsToday.ca that 14 line people went to assist in the area south of Barrie on Sunday after a severe ice storm hit this weekend, leaving hundreds of thousands without power in central and eastern Ontario.
Entegrus said it is proud to support fellow utilities because in "tough times, Canadians are stronger together."
Matesic said there was a request for help made through a mutual aid group available to help an area in need in these types of emergencies.
"We responded as we have in the past and the Ontario electricity sector is amazing at helping each other out during times of crisis," said Matesic.
Matesic said sending 14 line people, or half of the local complement, won't leave the Entegrus service area too thin to handle their regular business, adding neighbouring utilities will back up Entegrus if there's a local emergency.
"We're well positioned to maintain anything we need here and we anticipate the guys will be there for the better part of this week, but we can call them back at any time if we need them," Matesic added.
Entegrus crews should return to the Chatham and St. Thomas areas before the weekend.
Hydro One noted as of Monday at noon, there were approximately 370,000 customers without power and more than 460,000 customers have been restored since the start of the storm.
Hydro One anticipates it will take several days to restore all customers.
Crews are repairing and rebuilding main lines along with other key pieces of electricity infrastructure before repairs can be made to power lines that serve smaller numbers of customers, said Hydro One.