A person makes their way through the Sandy Hill neighbourhood of Ottawa, on Friday, Dec. 23, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby
Weather warnings remain in place across the country as major storms continue to dump snow and freezing rain on Quebec, Ontario and B.C., and batter the Atlantic provinces with heavy rain and powerful winds.
Hundreds of thousands of customers have been left without power in the final hours before Christmas, with hydro crews working around the clock to get the lights back on.
A Hydro-Quebec spokesman said about 1,000 workers were repairing power lines to restore electricity to approximately 320,911 customers as of mid-morningSaturday.
Across the border in Ontario, nearly 84,461 Hydro One customers were without power.
In the Maritimes, the lights were out for more than 90,000 customers across the region.
About 41,000 customers in Nova Scotia were still without power after winds reaching more than 115 kilometres an hour had knocked trees into power lines and wiped out electricity for about 104,000 customers in the province.
Nova Scotia Power said in a news release that crews had restored power to about 75 per cent of those homes by 6 a.m. on Saturday.
In New Brunswick, 669 regional outages had about 41,051 customers in the dark, and on Prince Edward Island, Maritime Electric said about 10,250 customers were without power.
Environment Canada forecast rain and powerful gusts through to Christmas Eve in the Maritimes, with the storm moving into Newfoundland and Labrador until Saturday night. Communities along New Brunswick’s northern shores were also bracing for storm surge, especially when high tide approaches later Saturday afternoon.
The fierce winter storms also put a damper on holiday travel plans, with flights cancelled at major airports in Ontario, Quebec and B.C., and police closing sections of provincial highways due to hazardous driving conditions.
In Metro Vancouver, icy buildup halted transit trains and threatened to fall from the cables on the Port Mann and Alex Fraser bridges, and heavy snow mixed with freezing rain prompted “moderate to high” avalanche warnings for Highway 3 between Hope and Hedley, as well as Highway 1 through the Fraser Canyon.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 24, 2022.
