In Quebec and Ontario, hundreds of thousands of households remained in the dark Friday after Wednesday’s powerful spring ice storm downed trees and brought down power lines, leaving three men dead in the two provinces.
Police say a third person to die in a vicious ice storm was a man in Saint-Joseph-Du-Lac, Que., who was running a generator in his garage. Insp. Jean Philippe Labbé says the man’s wife found him unconscious in the garage, and the 75-year-old died after being taken to hospital in Ste-Eustache.
He says firefighters determined carbon monoxide levels in the garage were 20 times the norm.
Earlier, Premier François Legault told reporters that a man in Ste-Eustache had died after bringing his barbecue indoors, but Labbé says that was a misunderstanding.
That death marks the second in the province in the aftermath of the spring storm, while another man in his 60s died Thursday when he was crushed by a tree branch while attempting to cut down branches on his property in Les Coteaux, southwest of Montreal.
Meanwhile, Ontario Provincial Police also confirmed a 59-year-old man had died after being struck by a falling tree branch at his home in South Stormont, Ont., on Wednesday.
Hydro-Québec said it has restored electricity for one-third of affected clients across the province, but the regions of Montreal, Montérégie and the Laurentians remain the hardest hit by the outages.
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“There is no question we’re living with a crisis,” Quebec Energy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon said at a news conference Friday.
At the peak, upward of one million households were without power. As of Friday afternoon, nearly 500,000 customers were still in the dark.
Fitzgibbon said he was satisfied with the progress made so far, saying nearly 1,400 workers were on the ground to resolve the ongoing outages and that about 45 per cent of affected clients have the lights back on.
Hydro-Québec director of energy system control Maxime Nadeau warned that high winds reaching 70 kilometres per hour could hamper efforts, but they’re closely monitoring the situation. Power outages should dip to 300,000 clients by the weekend, but some people may only get electricity back by Sunday or even Monday, he added.
In hard-hit Montreal, emergency centres are open across the city for those who need to warm up or charge their phones. Mayor Valérie Plante has asked people to move their cars if they are blocking crews from accessing damaged sites, adding parking tickets will not be given out Friday.
Montreal public health also urged caution Friday after receiving nearly 60 reports of carbon monoxide poisoning incidents. The department said “many families” were affected and it was putting additional pressure on already overwhelmed hospital emergency rooms.
In Ontario, some 23,000 customers just in Ottawa remain without power as of the last update from Hydro Ottawa at 10:30 p.m. Thursday night. The utility provider said it doesn’t expect to have power back up and restored for many until Saturday.
“We are expecting the situation to continue to fluctuate through the evening and into tomorrow and are treating this as a multi-day restoration event,” Hydro Ottawa said in a statement.
In addition, Hydro One — which provides power to residents outside of Ottawa in the Eastern Ontario region of the province — said on Thursday it has restored power to 238,000 customers but many remain without.
“Currently, there are approximately 93,000 customers without power, with eastern Ontario being one of the hardest hit regions in the province,” the provider said. “The company is working alongside contractors and utility partners, using every tool at their disposal including helicopters, to assess damage and restore power quickly and safely.”
— with files from The Canadian Press
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