Thousands of Ontario County residents woke up without power Tuesday morning after a massive outage swept across the Canandaigua area and surrounding communities, prompting local leaders to demand answers from RG&E about what caused the disruption and whether the region’s electric infrastructure can handle growing demand.
By mid-morning, service had largely been restored across the county. But questions lingered after more than 17,000 customers lost electricity during calm weather conditions that lacked the storms or high winds typically associated with outages of that scale.
The outage impacted communities across central Ontario County, with the City and Town of Canandaigua among the hardest hit. South Bristol, Bristol, East Bloomfield and Hopewell also experienced widespread service interruptions, while Victor saw several hundred outages.
The disruption also forced Canandaigua City School District officials to implement a two-hour delay Tuesday morning after widespread power loss affected the area before students and staff began arriving for the day.
Ontario County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Wellman said the size and timing of the outage demand a public explanation.
“An occurrence like this deserves an explanation,” Wellman said in a statement. “Disruptions of this size are usually weather related and after the spring we have had, we could finally describe this morning as a perfect spring day.”
Wellman noted that more than 17,000 residents lost service across multiple municipalities and that the Canandaigua City School District, the county’s second-largest district, was forced to operate on a two-hour delay because of the outage. He compared the disruption to a major municipal utility failure.
“As Supervisor of the Town of Phelps, if we had that level of customers without water or sewer for a morning, I would be required to give a reason,” he said.
The outage also reignited broader concerns about electric infrastructure investment in one of the Finger Lakes’ fastest-growing corridors.
Ontario County Economic Development Director Ryan Davis said regional leaders have repeatedly discussed the need for additional infrastructure planning in the Canandaigua and Victor areas as residential and commercial development continues to accelerate.
“Investment in the electrical infrastructure continues to be a major concern for both residential and commercial developers across the region,” Davis said. “A loss of power this size, on a weather day like this will only further highlight this issue.”
Davis added that officials have previously pushed for a Canandaigua-Victor area infrastructure study, but said it was his understanding the effort was not included as part of RG&E’s temporary rate increase discussions. He said county and regional leaders plan to continue discussions about long-term solutions.
RG&E had not publicly identified the cause of the outage Tuesday morning.
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