Hydro-Québec officials say their teams are working hard to restore power to more than 200,000 customers as a spring storm bringing heavy, wet snow continues to sweep across Quebec.
About 600,000 customers have been affected in one way or another since Wednesday evening, when strong gusts of wind arose and heavy snow accumulated on the branches of trees, causing them to hit the power lines, said Cendrix Bouchard, spokesman for Hydro-Québec, at a press conference in the afternoon.
As of Thursday afternoon, Hydro-Québec had recorded 1,160 outages affecting 220,815 customers across the province.
“We are doing our best to get them back online as quickly as possible, but it is likely that some people will have to wait until tomorrow for power to be restored,” Bouchard said.
The Laurentian Mountains are the most affected, with more than 70,000 customers affected, followed by Montreal and Montérégie with more than 26,000 and 34,000 customers without electricity respectively.
Thousands of people in Outaouais, Laval, Lanaudière and the Eastern Townships are also without power.
Bouchard said 1,200 Hydro-Québec employees are on site working to get people back online.
Since the storm is expected to last until Thursday evening, there may be further outages throughout the day, he says. “But that doesn’t mean we’re not working.”
Bouchard reminds people to keep a safe distance of about ten meters from fallen power lines and poles.
school closings
All schools in the English Montreal School Board, the Lester B. Pearson School Board and the Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board are closed due to a combination of snow and power outages.
About a dozen schools with the French School Service Centre of Montreal, the Center de Services Scolaire de Montréal (CSSDM) as well as some schools of the Riverside School Board in Longueuil are closed due to power outages.
The storm is the result of the collision of two weather systems, one from Colorado and one from the East Coast.
Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) issued a snowfall warning for Montreal on Wednesday morning and stated that snow depths totaling 15 to 20 centimetres were expected by Thursday evening.
Montreal city spokesman Phillipe Sabourin said snow removal crews spent all night and Thursday clearing the streets.
However, since many drivers have already removed their winter tires, he is urging people to “use public transport or stay at home.”
Sabourin says the city will not start a snow removal operation because the snow is expected to melt over the weekend as temperatures rise.
Other areas, including the Eastern Townships, Charlevoix and parts of the Gaspé Peninsula, are expected to see 20 to 30 centimeters of snow.
The weather agency says there will be heavy and wet snow at times as temperatures remain near freezing.
The ECCC warns that rapidly increasing snowfall could make travel difficult in some areas and visibility could be suddenly reduced at times.
