Thousands of people were still without power Sunday as the post-tropical storm Lee gradually left the Maritimes, leaving behind a trail of downed trees and coastlines damaged by huge waves.
By midday Sunday, the storm had passed Prince Edward Island and entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where it was expected to pass west of the Magdalen Islands and reach northern Newfoundland In the evening.
The storm has left large amounts of rain on eastern Gaspésie since Saturday morning. In general, it fell from 40 to 55 millimeters and even 113 millimeters in Gaspé. Around ten additional millimeters are expected on Sunday in this region, said Environment Canada. The rain will also continue on the North Shore, where 20 to 30 millimeters more are expected by this evening.
“Some areas will feel the winds for a few hours […]but certainly not as strong as they were when Lee has approached the Maritimes,” said Bob Robichaud of the Canadian Hurricane Center on Sunday.
Lee continues to weaken and conditions in most areas to the south and east of the storm are expected to improve as the day progresses.
The town of Shelburne in southwestern Nova Scotia experienced the full fury of the storm when it hit Saturday and suffered flooding due to a strong storm surge in its harbour.
As of 12:45 p.m. ADT, Nova Scotia Power reported outages affecting more than 65,700 customers, while approximately 8,000 NB Power customers were without power and 213 Maritime Electric customers were in the dark on PEI. of Prince Edward.
PHOTO HINA ALAM, THE CANADIAN PRESS
A dock having been pulled into the water by the post-tropical storm Leein St. George, New Brunswick.
At the height of the storm on Saturday, about 277,000 customers were affected by outages in Nova Scotia, where winds toppled trees onto power lines.
On Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick, which received more than 100 millimeters of rain, the village’s mayor, Bonnie Morse, said there had been no major flooding.
“There were a few swimming pools on the road, but nothing important justified closing the road,” said the mayor.
Although there were power outages, NB Power crews quickly restored power to most homes and businesses in the area, said Ms.me Walrus.
“Everyone is doing some cleanup today of fallen trees and branches, but for the most part we got through it pretty well,” she said.
For his part, Bob Robichaud affirmed that the storm Lee did not cause any surprises for weather forecasting experts.
We were forecasting a strong tropical or post-tropical storm and that’s exactly what we got, he said. We had winds over 100 kilometers per hour, but just below hurricane force.
Bob Robichaud of the Canadian Hurricane Center
The biggest challenge, he said, was the conversations on social media in the week leading up to the storm.
“There was a lot of angst and building up before we generally started talking about a storm affecting our area. There have been all kinds of stories about a massive storm surge in the Bay of Fundy and problems with the isthmus there, and that was never on the table,” Bob Robichaud noted. .