Thousands left in dark after outages sweep through southern Manitoba

A forceful storm front swept thatthrough southern Manitoba Wednesdayleft thousands of homes and buildings in the dark for hours.

• 2 tornadoes reported in southern Manitoba, storm moving east at 50 km/h

Manitoba Hydro was inundated with reports of power outagesWednesday night.

Outages have been reported in Crescentwood, Charleswood, St. Vital, Wildwood Park, Riverbend,and other parts of Winnipeg, as well asin St. Andrews just north of the city.

Power was out in the Wildwood area briefly but has since been restored to at least some customers.

The Crown corporation said the situation is fluid and there are thousands of customers without power, not just in parts of Winnipeg but also in western Manitoba, The Pasand Thompson. Thousands more in and around Stonewall were also affected.

Workers in some areas are currently unable to fix outages because of lightning.

The storm died down at about 9:30 p.m. to the west of the city.