Jasper was once again hit with yet another power outage on March 13.

Power went out to much of the town at 9:32 a.m. after ‘bumps on the line’ south of town knocked power out. Breakers prevented a full outage, as Marmot Basin and Jasper Park Lodge didn’t lose power, according to an Atco official.

Atco district manager Rod Carruthers said that while nothing is definitive, crews believe the heavy snowstorm on Friday was responsible for the outage.

“We had a heavy snow build-up on the line,” Carruthers said. “As it warms up, the snow drops off the lines and it causes them to spring up and slap together.”

When the snow falls off the line, it acts like a spring, and the wires end up bouncing.

Carruthers said the situation is not common.

Crews were able to restore most of the power by 10:23 a.m., and full power was restored to the town by 10:55 a.m.

Snow load issues knock out power about once or twice a year in the area, Carruthers said.

Carruthers said there is very little the power company can do to prevent these types of outages, other than bury power lines.

“That would be a major undertaking. To measure the size of that project versus the length of the outage, we have to weigh those decisions,” Carruthers said.

The breaker system did protect JPL and the ski hill, so Carruthers said there was a level of success with this outage.

“We’re studying to see if there’s more we can do to minimize the outages,” Carruthers said.