Winter storms, extreme weather shut down power and strand holiday travellers

By The Canadian Press on December 25, 2022.

Snow, freezing rain, high winds and rain continue to hammer large chunks of the country and are plunging Christmas Day travel plans into chaos.

In a tweet Saturday early evening, Via Rail said a CN train derailment has forced the cancellation of all trains between Toronto and Ottawa and Toronto and Montreal scheduled for Christmas Day.

This comes a day after ferocious winter weather grounded flights and stranded nine Via Rail trains between Ontario and Quebec on Saturday.

Meanwhile, power outages and impassable roads have prompted Ontario’s Niagara region to declare a state of emergencyand beg residents to stay off the roads.

P.E.I. and New Brunswick are the only provinces or territories not affected by an Environment Canada weather warning or statement as of Sunday early morning.

As of early Christmas morning, Hydro One is reporting over 55,800 customers without power in Ontario while Hydro-Québec is showing over 142,000 customers in the dark and NB Power shows more than 9,000 customers affected by outages in New Brunswick.

New Brunswick grappled with one of the largest power outages to hit the province in decades on Saturday, with over 71,000 customers in the dark at the peak of the outage.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 25, 2022.

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