Tens of thousand of people across the Maritimes remain without power, after the region was lashed by strong winds and heavy rain over the weekend.
New Brunswick has been the hardest hit, with NB Power reporting more than 94,000 customers in the dark after 100 km/h winds swept across the province Saturday and into Sunday.
NB Power has said that restoration efforts could last more than 24 hours, with the possibility that some areas could be without power for 72 hours.
“Residents are advised to prepare for a 72-hour outage,” said the New Brunswick government in a release.
READ MORE: Wind, rainfall warnings in effect for much of the Maritimes
NB Power says they are experiencing a large number of calls.
The utility is displaying all outages in New Brunswick on their website. As of 2:20 p.m., NB Power says 82,943 of their customers remain without power.
More than 120 crews have been mobilized across the province to respond to outages.
The province is asking New Brunswickers to be patient as they attempt to assess the damage from the storm.
The New Brunswick government says that municipalities have opened up warming and charging stations, including:
- Upper Nashwaak Lions Club, 1284 Route 107, Stanley
- Nashwaak Villa, 67 Lime Kiln Rd., Stanley
- Upper Kingsclear Fire Department, 22 Mazerolle Settlement Rd., Upper Kingsclear
- Estey’s Bridge Community Centre, 1388 Route 620 Highway, Fredericton
- Civic Centre, 44 Salmon Blvd., Campbellton
- Upper Miramichi Fire Department, 6327 Route 8, Boiestown
- Upper Miramichi Lions Club, 6438 Route 8, Boiestown
- Willie O’Ree Place, Mabie Lane, Fredericton (charging station only)
- Grant Harvey Centre, 600 Knowledge Park Dr., Fredericton (charging station only)
Nova Scotia, where wind and rain warnings were also posted, was hit with similar strength gusts overnight and into this morning along the Fundy coast and over northern sections of Cape Breton.
Nova Scotia Power reported this morning that more than 18,000 of its customers were waiting to be reconnected with the Annapolis Valley and North Shore areas being the hardest hit.
As of 4:30 p.m., just over 6,500 customers are without power.
The utility says they are expecting the “vast majority” of their customers to have their power restored by 11 p.m.
“A secondary complication has been the number of outage sites, each with small groups of affected customers or individual outages,” said Tiffany Chase in an email on Sunday.
“Many of these are spread out in rural, harder to access locations.”
All of Prince Edward Island was under a wind warning Saturday, and by this morning, more than 3,000 Maritime Electric customers were without power.
The wind warning for PEI has since ended.
— With files from The Canadian Press