The effects of the storm that has been battering since Thursday evening are beginning to be felt since nearly 190,000 residences were without electricity on Friday morning, according to the Hydro-Québec Info-pannes site.
• Read also: The problems are already piling up in Quebec
• Read also: Everything you need to know about the storm hitting Quebec
Here are the most affected regions:
- Capitale-Nationale: 54,722 customers without power
- Outaouais: 42,409 customers without power
- Laurentians: 35,839 customers without power
The regions of Lanaudière (4,005 customers), Montérégie (13,564 customers), but also are not left out of power cuts.
“[Vendredi] morning, the outages found on the network are mainly caused by gusts,” said Maxence Huard-Lefebvre, spokesperson for Hydro-Québec, in an interview with LCN.
Households also began to lose electricity in Chaudière-Appalaches (2,483 customers), Centre-du-Québec (1,672 customers) and Estrie (11,033 customers).
Conversely, the situation remained normal in Montreal with very few outages despite the weather cocktail of rain and wind that affected the city in the morning. Laval had 3,842 customers affected.
“We are not in a scenario of a large accumulation of ice as was the case in 1998”, wanted to reassure the spokesperson about the power cuts.
“What bothers us are the gusts of wind that could reach more than 100 km / h in some areas,” he added.
Nearly 800 workers from the state-owned company are mobilized for the day to restore power if necessary.
Hydro-Québec therefore recommends that Quebecers prepare to deal with a possible breakdown with a flashlight or recharged portable batteries.
For details of all regions, Click here.
Elsewhere in the country too
Photo QMI Agency, Toma Iczkovits
It is not only Quebec that has been hit hard by the snowstorm, while the other Canadian provinces have also suffered the repercussions of the violent winds on Friday morning.
A mix of freezing rain, snow and strong winds caused more than 30 power outages in Ottawa, where more than 12,000 customers were without power in the morning, Hydro Ottawa said in a statement.
“Temperatures are expected to drop today which could lead to a quick freeze in places where it rains, accompanied at times by strong winds and snow, which could cause further blackouts and damage our infrastructure,” he said.
Many other power outages are also listed in southeastern Ontario, where more than 30,800 Hydro One customers lacked power in the morning.
In Vancouver, more than 4,600 customers lost power around 8:30 a.m., although the province expects more outages on Friday and Saturday.
“It is the frozen rain that our meteorologists and our teams follow very closely. It is that which will add weight to the snow on the trees and branches, which will make them heavy and potentially cause them to fall into our equipment and our power lines, “said the spokesperson for BC Hydro, Susie Rieder at CTV News.
In Alberta, the agency responsible for operating the electricity system has asked households to preserve electricity given the “extreme” cold and “high demands” for electricity in the past few days, said the Alberta Electric System Operator. (AESO) on Twitter.
Warnings for heavy rain and damaging winds are also in effect in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick from noon Friday through Saturday morning, according to Global News.