Monday's lunch hour was a bust for many Whitehorse residents.

At approximately 11:58 a.m., Whitehorse and several other communities lost their electricity. Though many businesses had regained their power by 1 p.m., others were left in the dark.

"The lights all went out and I was like, ‘Oh, great. Just in time for lunch hour,' ” said Kayle Fleming, the guest services manager of the Town & Mountain Hotel.

Fleming said they were losing business due to their phones being down, but many of their customers stuck around in the lounge because they were still serving alcohol and cold food.

But for some businesses, the outage was more than a minor nuisance.

"It's not just an inconvenience. There's a fundamental cost attached to it every time we lose power,” Stephanie Churchill, owner of Inkspirationz Graphix, said today.

"There's a massive amount of waste,” she said. "That annoys me on a personal level, but we also take a huge hit financially.”

Inskpirations produces, among other things, large vinyl film prints that will be mounted on signs.

Churchill said it's one thing to lose some paper, but they often have four printers working simultaneously on expensive material, and the output from each machine is ruined when they lose electricity.

"Unfortunately, we have a number of clients working on tight deadlines. They're calling every hour asking if their project is ready,” Churchill said.

"Every time we lose power, it essentially wastes an entire production day here at Inskiprationz,” she said.

"I understand we live in the North. But we've taken all the steps we feasibly can take,” she said.

A small business like hers can't afford its own generator, so she and her staff will have to live with the unreliable electricity, she said.

Roxsane Maltby, a customer services coordinator at TD Canada Trust, said the bank could hardly function while the power was out.

"We can't do much,” she said. "It's inconvenient, obviously. Sometimes it's (the customer's) one day to come in and we can't help them out,” she said.

Maltby said that other than processing deposits, most of their clients were out of luck and had to return later.

Maltby said she's from B.C., and can't believe how often Whitehorse has lost power recently.

"We have no access to our systems,” she said.

A number of traffic lights were out, but bylaw officers were dispatched to direct traffic at a few key intersections.

Regardless, there were lengthy backups along Fourth Avenue and Second Avenue.

Heather Mcintyre, who manages the Westmark Whitehorse Hotel and Conference Centre, said the power outage came at a very inopportune time.

"Our restaurant had just filled up and boom – the lights are off,” she said.

Though the Westmark has emergency lights, they only stay on for about half an hour. Mcintyre said she had to dispatch patrols with flashlights to ensure their guests and patrons were OK.

While some establishments had to shut down during the outage, Mac's Firewood Books and Shopper's Drug Mart being two examples, others found they had enough natural light to stay open.

A staff member at the Tokyo Sushi on Main Street said they didn't lose any customers, and though some menu items were unavailable, most of their food could still be served.

The Subway outlet on Second Avenue was unusually busy during the outage, T&M management pointed out.

"I went there for my lunch hour and it was packed,” Fleming said. "People didn't know where else to go.”

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