Canada Global (Web News) After hydro personnel dealt with the largest-scale outages brought on by this week’s deadly ice storm, the rate of power restoration in Quebec was anticipated to slow down on Saturday.
Over 300,000 Hydro-Québec customers are still without power three days after freezing rain caused ice branches to fall on power lines, roads, and automobiles, according to Maxime Nadeau, director of energy system control.
“Now that the majority of our distribution system has been repaired, we are working on outages that have fewer customers connected to them. Hence, when we fix an outage, fewer consumers get their electricity back,” Nadeau said during a news conference on Saturday morning. “Thus, the restoration rhythm will be slower.”
He claimed that some of the about 3,000 unresolved outages are in difficult-to-reach places or are more difficult to fix, which will also hinder the process.
At its worst, the storm on Wednesday left more than a million people without power and covered significant portions of southern Quebec and eastern Ontario in ice.
Montreal, Montérégie, Laval, and Outaouais are home to the majority of Quebec’s 290,000 powerless residents.
Three deaths have been attributed to the storm, the most recent being a 75-year-old man who passed away in Saint-Joseph-du-Lac, Quebec, from carbon monoxide poisoning after using a generator in his garage.
The health department of Montreal said that scores of people who used outside equipment indoors on Friday while there was a power outage had carbon monoxide poisoning.
On Thursday in Les Coteaux, Quebec, another man perished while attempting to remove tree limbs from his home.
According to the provincial police, the man was hit by one of the branches and passed away immediately.
