The ice storm left hundreds of thousands of homes across Canada without power. PHOTO/Reuters
As AFP reported, some 500,000 homes in Quebec were in darkness, down from 1.1 million at the height of the outage. “We have restored power to more than 50% of customers affected by the outage,” said utility provider Hydro-Quebec.
“Our team is working hard and we are confident another 200,000 customers will have their power back by the end of the day,” the utility company added.
However, some residences will be without electricity until Sunday or even Monday, said Hydro-Quebec spokesperson Régis Tellier. “Better weather conditions should speed up the resumption of service,” he said.
Montreal, which accounts for about half of the outages, opened six temporary emergency shelters where residents without power spent the night.
At one location, located in the Verdun district, around 30 people came to warm up, drink coffee, eat and charge their electronic devices on the first day of the long Easter weekend.
“It was so boring,” said Isabelle, a 28-year-old teacher, who declined to give her last name. “I had planned to work and it delayed me a bit, but it’s not the end of the world,” he told AFP.
“Tvaholic. Beer guru. Lifelong internet nerd. Infuriatingly humble pop culture scholar. Friendly food advocate. Freelance alcohol fan. Incurable bacon ninja.”
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