(Halifax) Tens of thousands of homes and businesses are still without power, a week after the passage of the post-tropical storm Fiona that ravaged Atlantic Canada and eastern Quebec.
Posted at 5:39 p.m.
By mid-afternoon on Saturday, more than 66,000 customers were still waiting for power to return to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
The storm caused major network outages in both provinces. After the storm passed, more than 90% of local power company customers had no power on Prince Edward Island and approximately 80% of Nova Scotia Power customers were experiencing same situation.
Nova Scotia Power said it has restored power to about 370,000 of its 415,000 customers. She said she had deployed more than 1,500 employees to repair numerous breakages, mainly in the eastern part of the province and on Cape Breton Island.
Authorities in both provinces have warned that full restoration of networks could take another week.
“Nova Scotians can see more cranes and heavy equipment in the field,” Nova Scotia Power said in a statement released Saturday. In many cases, the damaged trees are so big that they can only be moved using these cranes and heavy equipment before allowing our teams to begin repairs, rebuild the network and restore the running. »
The federal government has deployed 700 military personnel to Atlantic Canada to help clean up debris and reopen roads. The Nova Scotia government requested additional military aid.
The government of Prince Edward Island has indicated that the cleanup will continue throughout the weekend. The Canadian Red Cross was to open a new disaster shelter at the Murchison Center in Charlottetown.
The location will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, officials said.