(Montreal) Even if Hydro-Québec reached its target on Friday to restore power to more than 85% of its subscribers affected by outages since the violent storms that swept through the province Thursday afternoon, more than 12,000 homes are still without electricity on Saturday.
Shortly after 12:45 p.m. on Saturday, the exact number of customers in the dark stood at 12,426, a marked improvement from the 150,000 subscribers who were affected at the same time on Friday. At the height of the crisis, Thursday evening, 392,000 customers were affected by outages.
The number of customers without power momentarily jumped to more than 36,000 on Saturday morning, but this increase was attributable to an animal that made its way into a substation in Montérégie and caused a trip. The situation was resolved quickly.
On Friday, the state-owned company had set a goal of reconnecting 85% of its affected customers by the end of the day, which it did — and even exceeded, reaching 95%. However, reconnecting the remaining 12,000 customers to the network will be a more complex operation.
“Of the approximately 530 outages that remain, almost 90% affect fewer than 50 customers, so it’s a lot of work to restore a small number of customers. That’s why the numbers will keep going down [samedi]but can continue to descend more slowly,” explained Caroline Des Rosiers, spokesperson for Hydro-Québec.
“The same number of hours of work that it took us, for example, yesterday, to restore power for thousands of customers, we will do today to restore power for four customers. So that’s why the numbers will go down more slowly today, ”she illustrated.
The good news, according to Mr.me Des Rosiers, is that the good weather will be there on Saturday, which will allow the Hydro-Québec teams to move forward more quickly.
“And the other good news, on our side, is that we can still count today on a strike force of 800 responders. We are talking about 800 fitters, pruners and planting teams who are on the ground today to restore power for as many customers as possible.
“Also, what we have been able to do is move teams from less affected regions to more affected regions to lend a hand to teams in sectors where there are more breakdowns”, underlined the door- word of the state corporation.
Hydro-Québec did not set a specific target for the number of customers who will be reconnected on Saturday, but also did not hide that some households may have to wait until Sunday or early next week before regaining access. electric current, especially in more complex cases and isolated sectors.
Large area affected
Saturday noon, the situation was slowly improving in the regions of Lanaudière, with 2,754 customers affected, and Montérégie, with 4,646 customers affected. In Montreal, however, the number of subscribers without power jumped to 2,758.
According to Mme Des Rosiers, the most important breakdowns are in Sorel, Lavaltrie, Lanoraie, L’Assomption and Terrebonne.
Of the approximately 500 outages still in progress throughout Quebec, approximately 300 have lasted for more than 24 hours. The others may have been triggered by tree branches that had been weakened by the storms and later fell on the wires.
On Thursday, the steamroller of severe thunderstorms and even tornadoes moved about 450 kilometers from south of Ottawa to Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade, halfway between Trois- Rivers and Quebec.
All affected areas received rainfall amounts varying between 50 and 90 millimetres, which caused sewer overflows and extensive flooding in several municipalities.
In Montreal, the City said Friday that it had received in some places 88 millimeters of rain in less than two hours Thursday afternoon, almost the amount it receives on average in the whole month of July (91 mm) .