(Montreal) Hydro-Quebec was able to restore power Sunday evening to at least 95% of its customers plunged into darkness since the ice storm last Wednesday, but the next morning, tens of thousands of Quebecers still had to wait.
After the day on Monday, “almost all” of the homes will have found electricity according to what Régis Tellier, vice-president of operations and maintenance for Hydro-Québec, said on Sunday.
By 9:30 a.m. Monday, there were 37,442 customers of the state-owned company without electricity. The Montreal region remained the most affected with 23,452 affected subscribers.
The other regions still affected by outages were Outaouais (5817), Montérégie (5007) and Laval (3037).
Régis Tellier warned that the pace of recovery would slow from Sunday. “We keep the same pace, he says, but when we fall into the secondary sections, it’s the same effort, but few customers. »
Some 1,500 workers were in the field and 40% of them worked in Montreal.
Special measures
Asked about the possibility of Hydro-Québec offering some form of compensation to customers affected by outages, Energy System Control Director Maxime Nadeau indicated that “most of the time, this is something we lean after the event […] I can’t answer that question right now.”
Telephone providers such as Bell, Telus, Fizz and Videotron have announced in the last few days that they will not charge customers who have exceeded their mobile data plan, under various conditions.
The government recalled 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 electronic devices.