Residents plunged into darkness for more than 96 hours began to find the time long Tuesday, in Quebec, while the race against time continued at Hydro-Quebec in order to reconnect as many users as possible.
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” It’s long ! drops Simon Drolet, 43, who admits not having slept much in the last few nights, for fear that something will break in his home. Fortunately, he can spend his nights with relatives.
On Mont-Clair Avenue, where he lives, Hydro-Quebec did not expect recovery before tonight for the 17 homes that have been without power since Friday. When we passed by, the thermometer read 4.6 degrees C inside his kitchen.
Golden neighbors
“Sometimes I feel like bawling,” says Sylvie Michaud, who lives nearby. I help mosus good neighbours. We take showers at our neighbours’, at my sister’s in Beauport. My neighbor heats things up for me. The other neighbor comes to bring us small thermoses with soups, small treats. I have a work colleague who lent me a generator,” she says.
Equipped with two generators, the family of two children manages to maintain a relatively acceptable temperature, above 10 degrees. “We can’t wait to eat a good hot meal. The little sandwiches [sic] and cheese, we have our dose! exclaims the 50-year-old.
Photo Dominique Lelievre
Simon Marcotte (left), Sylvie Michaud (right) and their children Ève-Marie and Raphaël keep their spirits up even if “it’s not easy” in Charlesbourg. They are holding on thanks to the help of their neighbors and loved ones. Residents plunged into darkness for more than 96 hours began to find the time long, Tuesday in Quebec. CREDIT: Dominique Lelièvre
Despite everything, the two residents are understanding and grateful to the Crown corporation teams on the ground.
“In my misery, it often happened that I thought of the guy who had to reconnect it, then the conditions in which he was,” said Mr. Drolet.
false hopes
However, he would have appreciated more precision and realism in Hydro-Québec’s forecasts for the return of service, while the deadline has been constantly postponed since Friday.
“I wonder how much false hope that creates for us. Maybe if from the start I knew it was coming back [seulement] on the 28th, I would have put other things into action more quickly. »
Almost everywhere, the situation has given rise to outbursts of mutual aid between neighbors. On rue des Branches, in Lebourgneuf, André Larochelle connected his generator to the refrigerators of his two neighbours, while waiting for the return of electricity.
“We have to help each other a little bit. I don’t want everyone to lose all their food! »
Nearly 30,000 without power
In the province, 25,829 customers were still without power Tuesday, just before 9 p.m. Hydro-Québec, however, expects a return to normal on Wednesday for the majority of its subscribers.
The Capitale-Nationale had a record of 6843 customers in the dark in the evening. Portneuf was the hardest hit sub-region, with 2,766 subscribers still awaiting recovery. Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean had 8,498 customers without power.
Nearly 1,300 workers were deployed across the province on Tuesday, in addition to reinforcements from New Brunswick and Maine in particular, in an effort to restore electricity.
“So far, nearly 650,000 homes have been reconnected to the Hydro-Quebec network, or about 95% of all households without electricity,” the state corporation said on Tuesday.
— With QMI Agency