Wildlife knocks out power to 476 Ridgeway customers

A wild animal cut power to about 476 Canadian Niagara Power customers in Ridgeway on Friday morning.

Operators rerouted electricity to restore power to more than 300 of those customers while crews repaired the equipment for the rest, said Andrea Celone, FortisOntario’s communications manager, in a statement to Fort Erie Radio.

FortisOntario, which owns Canadian Niagara Power, said the animal came into contact with electrical equipment but did not identify the animal or the equipment.

“We take measures to help reduce the potential for wildlife-related outages, including the installation of wildlife guards on our equipment,” said Celone. “While these measures help reduce the risk, unfortunately wildlife-related incidents can still occur from time to time.”

According to the company’s online outage map, the disruption began at 3:34 a.m. All Ridgeway customers got their power back before 8 a.m.

A raccoon at the Gilmore Road substation knocked out power to 5,575 Canadian Niagara Power customers in Fort Erie in March 2025.

Canadian Niagara Power did not tell Fort Erie Radio what caused a September outage that cut electricity to 686 Fort Erie customers.

Celone said FortisOntario continues to monitor outage trends and maintain its equipment.

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