Despite the efforts of its teams in the past few days, Hydro-Québec was unable to restore power to the entire province on Sunday, and thousands of Quebecers spent Christmas Day in the dark.
The toll, which stood at 130,000 customers without power on Sunday morning, first fell below 100,000 and around 2:30 a.m. Monday, the state-owned company was still reporting 2,080 outages across Quebec, i.e. 72,389 subscribers affected.
The president and CEO of Hydro-Québec, Sophie Brochu, had reported Sunday morning during a press conference that workers were still busy on the ground trying to control the situation.
She reiterated the state-owned company’s ambition to restore power to customers that have been down since Friday, but said more recent outages would take “longer” to resolve.
“We have a large number of outages that affect 5 or 10 customers. What it does is that it takes the same amount of work to connect fewer customers, and that’s what makes it take longer, ”explained the manager.
“Major vegetation incidents,” including trees that fell on wires or poles, also made the task more complex.
“There are people who will not get the power back until the start of the week. […] We are going to do everything we can to connect this quickly, ”said Mr.me Brochu for the sake of “transparency”.
At the height of the storm, nearly 380,000 Quebec customers no longer had access to power. According to Mme Brochu, more than 550,000 subscribers have lost power at one time or another since Thursday evening.
The president and CEO of Hydro-Québec will provide a new update on the situation Monday morning, at 11 a.m., at a press conference.
Saturday afternoon, the Premier of Quebec, François Legault, had underlined in a tweet the work of the teams of Hydro-Quebec, who are doing “everything they can to reconnect the most homes, as quickly as possible”. He also praised the efforts of the Ministry of Public Security and invited Quebecers to hear from their loved ones who live alone.
“Be careful on the roads too, the conditions are not ideal. For those who wish to warm up, places are ready to receive you in several cities and municipalities “, could we read on his Twitter account.
The Capitale-Nationale strongly affected
On Monday night, the region hardest hit by power outages remained that of the Capitale-Nationale, with 24,836 Hydro-Québec subscribers still without electricity.
The other regions most affected were Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean (12,789 customers), Côte-Nord (10,025 customers), Mauricie (6,044 customers) and Laurentides (5,348 customers).
Added to this were Bas-Saint-Laurent (4,713 customers), Outaouais (2,412 customers) and Montérégie (1,873 customers).
On Twitter, Hydro-Quebec had indicated Sunday that 1,200 employees were on the ground to restore service to as many people as possible.
Strong winds, which occurred in some places on Sunday, however, complicated the work of the company’s teams.
The provider cannot estimate when service will be restored for all customers, in particular due to the complexity of the logistics behind this major operation.
Teams are also moved from one region to another to ensure that the most affected areas have the necessary number of teams on the ground for the scope of the work to be carried out.
Transport disruptions
Quebecers who travel to celebrate Christmas should also note that many disruptions are still in effect in the various modes of transport.
Environment Canada has issued several blowing snow advisories for the majority of regions between Montreal and Quebec, which means that “dangerous road conditions can be expected due to reduced visibility in some places”.
The storm surge warning issued jointly by Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Meteorological Service of Canada Quebec Region is now over for the Mont-Joli and Bic-Rimouski sectors.
At Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau International Airport, several flights were delayed on Sunday, but many planes also managed to leave the tarmac. Some delays were also reported early Monday morning, as at Jean-Lesage International Airport in Quebec.
The rail carrier VIA Rail announced Sunday evening the cancellation of all its Boxing Day services between Toronto and Montreal as well as between Toronto and Ottawa due to the consequences of a Canadian National (CN) train derailment which occurred on Christmas Eve.
The company had previously canceled all trains scheduled on these two routes for Christmas Day for the same reason.
Fierce winter conditions grounded nine VIA Rail trains, in some cases leaving passengers without food or water for more than 12 hours.
On Saturday afternoon, federal Transport Minister and MP for Mississauga Centre, Omar Alghabra, described the situation at VIA Rail as unacceptable.
Transports Québec also points out that users who travel between Québec and Saguenay by electric vehicle will not have access to charging stations for an indefinite period in the Laurentides wildlife reserve at l’Étape.
Motorists are advised to download the Québec 511 application to stay informed of current events on the road network.