LIVE: Power could be restored Thursday to thousands in downtown Calgary after underground fire

Enmax should have power restored to all of west downtown by midday Thursday "if all goes according to plan," power company CEO Gianna Manes said on Monday.

The utility has pulled out 3.5 kilometres of cable damaged in an underground vault fire Saturday night, and has begun to replace it, the CEO told reporters at an Emergency Operations Centre briefing.

Earlier, the city-owned utility had estimated it could take until the weekend to restore power to several high-density blocks of the downtown. Manes said the clearer timeline has come after 20 Enmax workers have worked continuously in confined underground spaces.

The city's roads should all be back and running during Tuesday morning rush hour, Mayor Naheed Nenshi told the briefing. There will be some lane reductions in the area where the fire occurred.

Seventy per cent of residents in the blackout zone have self evacuated, fire chief Ken Uzeloc said. City crews are doing checks on the many seniors who have chosen to stay in their buildings.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Mobile users, view live updates in our ScribbleLive blog:http://bit.ly/oct12fire

For much of the morning and early afternoon Sunday, residents of the area's condo towers and apartment buildings could be seen hauling belongings out of their homes in suitcases, grocery bags, and trolley carts. Others sat on the curbside, waiting for suburban friends or family members to pick them up.

Many of these residents had spent the night in their powerless apartments, fully expecting life would be back to normal when they woke up. It was only Sunday morning, as news began to trickle in, that they realized it might be a good idea to find another place to stay.

Taara Smith sat outside her Calgary Place apartment building, waiting for the friend who has offered to take her in for a few days.

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LIVE: Power could be restored Thursday to thousands in downtown Calgary after underground fire