Thousands without power in N.S., some schools closed as rain, snow blankets the Maritimes

A storm closed schools and cut powers for thousands of people in the Maritimes on Wednesday.

A late fall storm brought heavy snow, rain and strong winds to the Maritimes Wednesday, causing power outages, messy roads and cancelling schools across the region.

Weather alerts

A series of special weather statements, snowfall warnings and wind warnings were in place for all three Maritime provinces early Wednesday.

Those statements and warnings have all since ended.

• Hourly and 7-day forecast on our CTVNewsAtlantic.ca weather hub

The bulk of Wednesday’s precipitation was wet and heavy snow, but some areas, especially along the coast, saw a mixture of rain and snow.

Some areas also saw northerly wind gusts of up to 90 kilometres per hour.

Meanwhile, Environment Canada has issued new warnings and watches in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick for overnight Thursday into Friday morning.

School closures

Most schools in Nova Scotia were closed Wednesday, though there were no closures in the Halifax area. Some schools in the Strait Regional Centre for Education were dismissed early due to a power outage.

In New Brunswick, all schools were closed in the Anglophone east and south districts. All schools on P.E.I. were initially on a one-hour delay. It was later announced they would remain closed.

A full list of closures can be found here.

Provincial offices

P.E.I. said all provincial civil service offices in the West Prince area(s) would open at 9:30 a.m. Provincial civil service offices in East Prince, Queens and Charlottetown areas opened at 10:30 a.m. In Kings County, provincial service offices opened at 12 p.m.

Health PEI was asking Islanders with appointments at hospitals, clinics and other health-care services to call ahead to confirm their appointment or to notify staff if they were unable to make it.

Locations and services that are closed can be found online.

Power

As of 4 p.m. there were more than 6,200 Nova Scotia Power customers without electricity, down from 19,000 customers around noon. The utility said there may be delays in restoring power in some areas due to road conditions.

There were 62 NB Power customers without electricity at that time, and 100 Maritime Electric customers off the grid in P.E.I.

NB Power spokesperson Elizabeth Fraser said between 5 p.m. Tuesday and 7 a.m. Wednesday there were eight power outages impacting 179 customers.

Parking ban declared

Saint John, N.B., has declared a temporary overnight parking ban for the south/central peninsula effective 11 p.m. Wednesday through to 7 a.m. Thursday.

Any vehicles remaining on the street in that area after 11 p.m. will be ticketed and/or towed.

The following parking lots will be cleared for residents who park on the street beginning at 6 p.m.:

• Peters Street
• Sydney Street (Service New Brunswick)
• Vulcan Street

Travel

The 11:45 a.m. Marine Atlantic crossings between North Sydney, N.S., and Port aux Basques, N.L., were cancelled.

The ferry service also expects potential schedule impacts to sailings the rest of the week.

Northumberland Ferries says all sailings between Wood Islands, P.E.I., and Caribou, N.S., scheduled for Wednesday have been cancelled.

The Fundy Rose’s 9 a.m. Saint John, N.B., departure to Digby, N.S., was revised from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Saint John Transit says buses are operating, however, there may be delays and/or detours.

Officers with the Saint John Police Force were reporting poor road conditions and reduced visibility in some areas early Wednesday morning.

In Moncton, Fire Department Acting Platoon Chief Jamie Rooney said there were a lot of vehicles off the road on the highway during the morning commute.

At 8:37 a.m. the RCMP posted on social media that Highway 2 was closed to traffic due to a collision.

“At one point we had the Trans-Canada shut down for a short time just because there were so many cars off,” said Rooney.

It was reopened to traffic less than an hour later.

Rooney said there were no serious injuries.

There were also multiple fender-benders in the Halifax area early Wednesday as the rain turned to snow, making for slick conditions.

The municipality was asking drivers to allow for extra time to arrive at their destination.

Nova Scotia’s Department of Public Works said just after 9:30 a.m. the westbound lane of the Cobequid Pass would be closed for several hours to remove trucks stuck in the snow.

All lanes on the Cobequid Pass had reopened as of 4 p.m.

Logan Freeman, a trucker, was stuck on the Cobequid Pass for nearly seven hours. He said the line vehicles on the road was roughly six kilometres long.

“I’ve been driving for eight years now and I’ve never actually been in that situation where I had to sit that long alongside the road,” he said. “No one really came by for the longest time.

“There was no plow trucks for a while and then, finally, eventually, one plow truck came by, couldn’t get up through so he had to move some people. He ended up backing all the way down the hill and then they shut the highway down.”

The Nova Scotia RCMP said Highway 104 westbound in Westchester Mountain was closed just after 8 a.m. due to multiple tractor-trailers off the road.

P.E.I. RCMP says dispatchers received more than a dozen calls about vehicles off the road Wednesday morning. There have been no injuries.

Several collisions were also reported in Nova Scotia’s Kings County Tuesday night.

Three crashes involved tractor-trailers on Highway 101.One big rig flipped on a slippery section of the highway near Exit 8A in Lockhartville.

RCMP, Hantsport and Wolfville firefighters responded to the scene around 5 p.m. There were no reports of serious injuries.

-With files from CTV News Atlantic’s Callum Smith