Key takeaways:
- Public utility working to fix power for 80,000 clients following spring storm.
- On Saturday, the storm that struck some areas of Quebec and Ontario crashed the lights out for more than 554,000 Hydro-Québec clients at its peak.
- As of Wednesday, almost 80,000 clients are still waiting for their power to be repaired.
Hydro-Québec says units are still working on fixing electricity to almost 80,000 clients in the region and that it could take till this weekend to bring everyone back on the grid.
Since Saturday, thousands of citizens have been left in the dark following a powerful spring storm that swept across large swaths of the area, downing trees, and power lines.
The most impacted province is the Laurentians, where approximately 50,000 clients are still without power. As of Wednesday afternoon, several 18,000 customers in the Lanaudière were without electricity, and more than 15,000 in the Outaouais.
At a press conference Wednesday in Morin-Heights, a small, hard-hit town in the Laurentians, Hydro-Québec president, and CEO Sophie Brochu said units are working “as fast as possible” to fix power to all households.
Also read: Tornado alerts lifted in Quebec
“We will not go until everyone has been reconnected,” she told journalists.
Brochu stated the public utility has nearly 700 crews — or 1,400 people — working around the clock, including teams from private contractors. The outages and even some from New Brunswick haven’t concerned these areas.
Régis Tellier, vice-president of operations and care at Hydro-Québec, said he expects to have 50,000 customers reconnected by the end of the day, “but we cannot expect to reconnect all clients before Friday, maybe even beyond.”
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Saturday’s storm struck Morin-Heights. Trees were demolished over vehicles and roofs, and power lines littered the roads.
Source – cbc.ca
