Storm: Hydro-Québec wants to reconnect up to 80% of Quebecers on Monday

Nearly 230,000 Quebecers were still without power Monday morning around 8 a.m. following the violent storm that swept across Quebec and Ontario on Saturday, leaving a wave of destruction and nine dead in its wake.

• Read also: [EN IMAGES] A rare weather phenomenon hit Quebec and Ontario

• Read also: Massive deployment of Hydro-Québec: teams from New Brunswick as reinforcements

The vast majority of its outages were located in the Laurentians (107,589), Lanaudière (62,553) and Outaouais (51,118).

“Some of the interruptions that persist may take longer, due to difficult access conditions, significant damage to the network and the extent of the damage to be collected,” explained Hydro-Québec in the morning.

Remember that at the worst of the storm, more than 550,000 power outages were recorded in Quebec. Since then, more than 600 teams – more than 1,000 workers – have been deployed for the state company, which has been able to restore about half of its network battered by the fall of many trees and branches.

Workers from outside the Hydro-Québec network, including some 40 teams from New Brunswick, have also come in to help, underlined the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Jonatan Julien, by taking stock of the progress of the recovery work on Monday morning.

“It’s a lot of broken infrastructure that we find. It was big big winds. 150, 160 km / h, which means that we find great damage, ”added Régis Tellier, vice-president of operations and maintenance at Hydro-Québec, giving the example of the fall of 17 poles in a row. in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines during an interview with TVA Nouvelles.

According to Quebec, the storm swept through a corridor covering about 300 km long by 100 km wide.

“It’s one of the very, very big [tempêtes] that we have had in recent years. Today, what we really want is to rebuild. Here, we have replanted the poles and we are going to put the wiring back. We will rebuild as much as possible during the day, ”said Mr. Tellier, who had not seen such significant damage for more than ten years.

Hydro-Quebec hopes to restore 80% of outages by the end of the day. Thereafter, the teams will tackle more isolated outages, particularly in the Hautes-Laurentides, underlined Mr. Tellier.

However, no timetable could be provided for the complete reconnection of all Quebecers.

Ontario too

On the Ontario side, Hydro Ottawa said Monday morning that it had restored power to about 70,000 subscribers, against 110,000 who were still in the dark.

Hydro One, meanwhile, still counted 226,000 outages, while 360,000 customers regained power.

“The extent of the damage to our distribution network is incomprehensible. We are managing this across the city, since no sector has been spared,” Hydro Ottawa said Monday morning.

Here is the state company’s balance sheet as of 1:46 p.m.

• Capitale-Nationale: 1,590 customers out of 434,813
• Lanaudière: 55,870 customers out of 263,240
• Laurentians: 95,562 customers out of 362,065
• Mauricie: 2,362 customers out of 168,051
• Outaouais: 43,505 customers out of 224,649
• All of Quebec: 198,972 clients out of 4,492,115

For all the details, visit the website of Hydro-Quebec.