"Erie Thames Powerlines experienced a direct lightning strike on one of our substations in the town of Tavistock." -Chris White, Erie Thames President The power remains out after last night's wild thunderstorm that blew through Oxford County. The strike has knocked power out to some 1500 residents throughout most of Tavistock and an additional 50 businesses. Erie Thames Power expects that will remain the case until at least around the dinner hour this evening. In the meantime, Erie Thames President Chris White advises residents to keep their fridges and freezers closed. "Certainly in terms of their produce and meats and things like that inside their freezers and that, they should keep all those doors closed. Typically that stuff should last a long period of time." White says crews are trying to assess whether the transformer that was hit is completely destroyed, or if is just insulators on the transformer that were destroyed by the strike. The damage is expected to range between 20 and 70-thousand dollars. Despite the severity of last night's lightning storm, White says this was the only significant issue with power disruptions faced by Erie Thames. Hydro One is dealing with a number of small outages in the northern half of Oxford County, and there's a larger outage due to equipment failure in western Brant County. Nearly 1800 residents are affected by that outage.

Woodstock Candidate Profile - Joe Brown
Re-Election Not the Plan for Marcus Ryan
UPDATE: Federal Offender Arrested in Simcoe
Missing Boaters Found Deceased in Lake Erie
A Solid Year for the Tavistock Braves
News Poll: Victoria Day Weekend 2026
Paris Driver Facing Impaired Charges
PJHL Playoff Recap - May 8th to May 10th 2026
WOWC Partners with Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative
Perth OPP Investigate SUV vs. Motorcycle Crash
UPDATE: Boil Water Advisory Ends
Woodstock City Council BYOB Decision
WPS Briefs - May 8th, 2026
Woodstock Candidate Profile - Jerry Acchione
Hippie Fest is Coming to Woodstock
PJHL Playoff Recap - May 7th, 2026
OCFA Honours Awards of Excellence Recipients
Frost Advisory for Oxford County
Watering Restrictions in Effect in Oxford County
Realtors Care Food Drive Returns to Oxford County