The City of Windsor is reporting substantial progress after the ground below a passenger vehicle collapsed and knocked out power in the downtown core.
Around 4 p.m. Tuesday, the ground collapsed, sending asphalt and a vehicle into an underground utility vault in the alley behind Royal Windsor Terrace at 380 Pelissier Street.
The city reports that all traffic lights are now functioning, and ENWIN Utilities Inc. reports that power has been restored for the final 29 customers in the impacted area between Park Street and University Avenue on the west side of Ouellette Avenue as well as the Royal Windsor Terrace.
The next steps will be to remove the vehicle from the vault and replace damaged electrical equipment.
The vault is privately owned, so officials are working with the property management group to have the vehicle removed as quickly as possible.
Until that happens, there's no way to forecast how quickly the equipment can be replaced and power restored to the remaining affected customers.
The City will be placing garbage bins on Park Street and Ouellette Avenue for residents of the Royal Windsor Terrace and area store owners to dispose of their garbage until such time as the alley can be re-opened to resume normal garbage collection.
Cogeco customers impacted by the outage should have service restored by this evening.