(Montreal) In the early evening, Hydro-Quebec said that 91% of affected customers have found power. However, the teams of the Crown corporation still have their work cut out for them.
Updated yesterday at 10:06 p.m.
The number of households without electricity stood at more than 35,000 according to data published Thursday at 9:46 p.m. by Hydro-Québec.
This number rose to 55,000 at the end of the morning. The state-owned company warns that further outages may occur while crews work to restore service.
“The more we progress in the field, the more complicated the cases are to deal with,” argues Hydro-Québec in a post on Twitter.
As has been the case since severe thunderstorms hit Quebec and Ontario late Saturday afternoon, the region most affected by the outages was the Laurentians, with more than 18,000 customers still plunged into darkness.
On the Outaouais side, approximately 6,500 customers were still without electricity, while this number rose to 4,600 in Lanaudière.
Hydro-Québec was still reporting nearly 1,400 outages in progress, the majority of which were in the Laurentians.
“In three hours, we lost 500,000 customers in (a space of 100 km by 300 km). It’s massive, ”said, Thursday, in a press briefing, the president and chief executive officer of the state-owned company, Sophie Brochu.
She says “we can’t have teams that are ready for climatic weather events like that”. “We had to work in a very concentrated area and bring people in from all over,” she says.
At his side, the executive vice-president and chief operating officer and customer experience at Hydro-Québec, Éric Fillion, explained that it is usually small trees that fall on the electrical wires and cause outages. For the current situation, he indicates that these are large trees of about fifty centimeters in diameter.
Mr. Fillion indicates that more than 500 poles will be changed during Thursday evening, and “probably” 200 transformers. “It’s a gigantic effort,” he says.
On social networks, Prime Minister François Legault assured that he is following the situation “very closely” with the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Jonatan Julien.
“I know it’s difficult and the wait is long. Last Saturday’s storm caused major damage to several Hydro-Québec structures and electrical wires, which makes the work more complicated. I want to thank you for your patience, ”wrote the Prime Minister.
“We have made a lot of progress in the last few hours and I am told that we should continue to make significant progress today. »
During a previous press briefing on Wednesday, Hydro-Québec estimated that it could restore service for the majority of affected customers by the end of the day on Thursday.
Some residences that are more isolated or more difficult to access will have to wait longer, however, until Friday or Saturday. Hydro-Québec also points out that “nearly half of the breakdowns that persist affect 10 customers or less”, which explains the longer delays for some households.
Mr. Legault also wanted to thank the many teams on the ground who have been hard at work since Saturday.
“Thank you also to all the people who lend a hand in the field: the firefighters, the police, the mayors, the municipal employees, the volunteers. It always touches me so much to see Quebecers helping each other in difficult times,” said the Premier.
“We are doing everything we can to reconnect all households as quickly as possible. »
Hydro-Québec indicates that 1,950 workers from several trades are deployed in the field, including teams of arborists and vegetation technicians and engineers.
Sophie Brochu said the scale of the disaster was the worst since the 1998 ice storm.
The line of violent thunderstorms hit a strip of territory 300 kilometers long by 100 kilometers wide, a magnitude rarely seen.
No less than 500 poles and 100 transformers will have been replaced by the end of the restoration work. So far, some 300 poles have been replanted.
Eleven people lost their lives due to Saturday’s thunderstorms, ten in Ontario and one in Quebec.
Sophie Brochu said she believes that this operation will cost the state-owned company “several tens of millions”, but she assured that these sums will not be passed on to customers.