(Montreal) If the trend continues, Hydro-Québec will be able to restore power to 95% of its customers plunged into darkness since Wednesday’s ice storm by Sunday evening as promised, even if some Quebecers will have to resign to wait any longer.
By 8:45 a.m. Sunday morning, there were about 117,000 state-owned utility customers still without power, meaning nearly 90% of the 1.1 million homes that lost access to heating and in the light this week have already been reconnected.
The Montreal region remained the hardest hit, with 87,000 customers without electricity Sunday morning, but the situation had improved significantly compared to 24 hours earlier. Saturday morning, around the same time, the report showed nearly 190,000 customers without heating or electricity in Montreal.
The other regions still affected by outages on Sunday morning were Outaouais (14,000), Montérégie (13,000), Laval (7,000) and Laurentides (1,000).
In order to offer respite to people who regained power on Saturday evening, and to those who will be reconnected in the coming hours, the government has announced that food markets will be able to remain open in these regions on Sunday, despite Easter Day. . This will also be the case in Lanaudière, where the number of breakdowns was high on Saturday.
During a press briefing held Saturday morning at its control center, Hydro-Quebec said its goal was to have reconnected one million subscribers by Sunday evening.
Thursday, 400,000 customers were reconnected to the network, just like Friday. The pace, however, slowed somewhat on Saturday, to just under 200,000 customers reconnected, but the state corporation had warned that it was now busy working on outages that affect fewer customers – which ensures that fewer households have electricity at once.
Saturday morning, the state company estimated that 100,000 to 150,000 customers would have to wait until Monday, at the earliest, before finding electricity. Sunday morning’s figures, however, suggested a more optimistic picture.
Hydro-Québec will hold a new press briefing on Sunday at 11 a.m. to provide an update on the situation.
In the meantime, the government recalled on Saturday that more than 100 emergency centers have opened their doors in the most affected regions, in order to allow people for whom the blackout is prolonged to go to warm up, eat and recharge their batteries. electronic appliances.