Pieces of ice fell around Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, who came together Thursday noon to walk the streets of the metropolis to see the extent of the ravages of the ice. In front of a huge shattered tree, they detailed the support they will provide to the affected citizens.
Accompanied by Prime Minister Trudeau, the mayor of Montreal said that the City will not distribute parking tickets on Thursday to facilitate street cleaning.
Emergency accommodation centers will also open from Thursday evening in several boroughs for those whose home interior becomes too cold.
The two leaders, however, placed a large part of the responsibility in the hands of Hydro-Québec. “For example, here we can’t come and clean the street until Hydro-Québec has come to reconnect [les logements]. So, we depend on Hydro-Québec, ”illustrated the mayor.
Half of Montreal had no power Thursday afternoon. Traffic lights at many intersections remained off. Authorities are asking motorists to come to a complete stop. Police have been deployed at key intersections in the city. The clearing of the main roads monopolizes most of the City’s workforce assigned to street cleaning.
Some 10,000 calls have been made to 311 since Wednesday by citizens who saw damage to their homes. No serious injuries have been reported so far. The mayor invited her fellow citizens to avoid walking in the parks to avoid any unfortunate incident.
Heat breaks
Present at the press briefing, the director of the Montreal Fire Department, Richard Liebmann, warned that help is beginning to be organized for the most ill-served Montrealers. A heat drop-in center has already opened its doors in the Anjou sector. “Today, there is no big emergency because it is mild. On the other hand, we are already predicting a cooling tomorrow. As things evolve, we will open more centers. »
“We are here to help as much as possible,” added Prime Minister Trudeau, without closing the door to support from the Canadian army. “I’m happy to talk about it with the mayor. I’m going to talk about it with Mr. Legault in a few hours when we visit Hydro-Québec. We are there to help, but it depends on a formal request from the province and the municipality, which have a lot of staff. »
In comparison to the devastation of the great ice storm of 1998, he wanted to put the extent of the current crisis into perspective. “We hope that everything will recover more quickly, that we have learned certain things, but we feel in a less serious situation. »
More than 350 trees and nearly 1,600 branches have fallen on Montreal territory since Wednesday because of the ice storm.
Mayor Valérie Plante is one of hundreds of thousands of Quebecers without electricity Thursday morning. “Last night, during the first hours, there was a feverishness at home,” she confided to the Duty after his press briefing. “It felt a bit like the start of the pandemic. We thought we were going to stay home and relax. But today, without electricity in his telephone, my son, for example, finds it less funny. »
Hydro-Québec estimates that it will be able to absorb a third of the outages by Friday noon, and a second third by Friday evening. Thus, Friday at midnight, 70-80% of citizens deprived of electricity should be reconnected.
Further details will follow.