Thousands of people were without power in parts of Atlantic Canada on Friday due to a potent storm that brought strong winds and heavy rainfall to the region.
Nova Scotia Power said about 37,900 customers had been affected by outages in areas that ran the length of the province. The outages were attributed to high winds linked to an intense low pressure system that carried strong southeasterly winds gusting up to 100 km/h on the mainland.
NB Power estimated almost 17,000 customers were without power as of 9 a.m. Friday, following an intense low pressure system that was forecast to track across western New Brunswick. Winds were expected to gust up to 90 km/h in the Saint John area.
The Fredericton International Airport was playing catch-up after stormy weather caused delays and cancellations Thursday night.
“We’ve had an interesting 24 hours or so,” spokesperson Katie O’Rourke said. “It’s really windy right now so that can affect flights and then of course last night we had the storm, and our crews did a really great job of keeping the runways clear but what we can’t control is visibility and that was the issue that we had last night, with the wind blowing and the snow was blowing and if they can’t see, then it’s not safe to land.”
“We’re always prepared for worse. We’re an airport in the Maritimes and we’re always prepared for winter … so we’ve got extra crews that are on during the winter time so we actually have more people that work over the winter than over the summer.”
Environment Canada was also forecasting up to 25 centimetres of snow for the Acadian peninsula before it turns to rain, warning that travel in the area could be treacherous because of blowing snow.
RCMP in New Brunswick said that as of 1:30 p.m., there had been more than a dozen collisions, though none were serious and most happened in the northern part of the province.
Nova Scotia spokeswoman Bev Ware said that by 9 a.m. Friday, only about 12,300 Nova Scotians remained without power.
“The winds have been extremely strong, but we did know this was coming and we did plan for this,” she said. “Crews worked throughout the night … during some very tough conditions.”
Environment Canada issued several rain, wind and snowfall warnings for the region.
In Inverness County, it said winds could gust to 170 km/h. Ware said they tracked wind gusts of up to 128 km/h in western Cape Breton.
“Very strong wind gusts can damage buildings, down trees and blow large vehicles off the road,” the statement said.
It said southwesterly winds may gust up to 90 km/h in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley and near the Bay of Fundy as the system pulls away. It also warned that higher than normal water levels are expected along the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Northumberland Strait near high tide. It said up to 40 millimetres of rain could fall over central Nova Scotia and into Cape Breton.
In P.E.I., Maritime Electric reported outages in dozens of communities that were seeing wind gusts of up to 100 km/h.
In Newfoundland, winds in the Wreckhouse area were expected to reach 160 km/h an hour.
Marine Atlantic cancelled crossings Thursday night and the Confederation Bridge to P.E.I. was closed for part of Friday due to high winds.
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