A wide spread power outage in the southwest Tuesday afternoon had Sask Power crews busy.

Power went out, and crews were dispatched at about 2:15 p.m. The power was restored in some areas at about 6:30 and all power was restored by about 8:30 last evening.

Joel Cherry is a spokesperson with Sask Power. He explains the reason for the outage by saying "It looks like the issue here was ice on the lines, which is not surprising given the weather. What I have here is that it was caused by ice. But what usually happens when ice causes transmission outages, is ice builds up on the line and you have that combined with wind, which causes the lines to buck up and down, it's called "galloping"."

Power was out in the communities of Shaunavon, Dollard, Ponteix, Gull Lake, Val Marie, Consul, Maple Creek, as well as in the surrounding rural areas.

Cherry added that when a large outage like that occurs, the first order of business for workers is to find where the affected line is, which can take up to a couple hours, and then repairing it.