Around 8,000 Hydro-Québec customers still without power one week after winter storm

Thousands of Quebec households remained without electricity Thursday, one week after a winter storm descended on the province.

As of 4 p.m., Hydro-Québec reported that more than 8,000 clients are in the dark, including about 2,500 in the Quebec City area. Other affected areas include the Laurentians, where 1,700 were still without power.

The utility has restored service to about 97 per cent of affected homes. The messy mix of heavy snow, high winds and rain knocked out power for more than 350,000 at the height of the storm last Friday.

Hydro-Québec has about 1,300 workers on the ground Thursday.

“Our crews are working to restore service as quickly as possible,” the company said in an update on its website.

Sophie Brochu, Hydro-Québec’s CEO, said earlier this week that many of the remaining outages are complex to fix, affect few customers, and may require crews to use snowshoes or snowmobiles to reach the lines.

While she said power would be restored for the majority of Quebecers by Wednesday, she could not promise all outages would be resolved by New Year’s Eve.

— with files from The Canadian Press