Power outages, travel chaos as ice storm grips Ontario, Quebec and Maritimes

CTV Atlantic: Hundreds in N.B. still without power As power crews continue to work tirelessly to re-connect customers, many wonder what could have prevented the mass outages.

TORONTO -- A steady dose of freezing rain across parts of Eastern Canada turned roads and sidewalks into skating rinks Sunday, cut power to hundreds of thousands of people, and played havoc with holiday plans at one of the busiest travel times of the year.

Anxious passengers found themselves stranded in airports from Toronto to St. John's, N.L., days before Christmas.

Among them was Bradley Russell, on a break from work in Fort McMurray, Alta., who was trying to fly home Sunday to his wife and four-year-old son in Gander, N.L.

"I've got a little boy, he wants me home, so I need to get home," said Russell as he searched frantically for an alternative flight at Toronto's Pearson International Airport.

The situation drew comparisons to the deadly ice storm that encased Quebec in 1998, as hydro crews across the region struggled to restore service.

"Some of the crews I've spoken to said this is as bad," said Blair Peberdy, vice-president of Toronto Hydro. The utility said by early Sunday evening it had 264,000 customers without power.

"These storms tend to wreak havoc and we have to go street by street with chainsaws."

Hydro One, which serves much of rural Ontario, was reporting more than 130-thousand customers were affected as of late Sunday night.

Ontario's premier said Sunday that she had talked to many mayors of communities affected by the storm to offer provincial support. She said the province was going to provide tree harvesters to some communities to help crews clear away downed trees.

"We're going to bring in the resources that are needed to deal with the situation," Kathleen Wynne told a news conference.

At least one municipality, the township of Woolwich near Waterloo, declared a state of emergency Sunday night because the power was expected to be out for 24 hours.

Via Rail warned commuters to expect delays on its routes between Toronto and Montreal or Ottawa and police warned people to stay off the roads if possible. One of its trains got stuck in Oshawa due to downed power lines.

"Thoughts are with those without power due to the ice storm," Prime Minister Stephen Harper tweeted. "Please stay safe."

The weather conditions, which saw people skating down streets in Kingston, Ont., were suspected to have played a role in four fatal highway crashes in Quebec and another in Ontario on the weekend.

At the height of the storm, Hydro Quebec said 51,000 customers were without power, mainly in the Estrie and Monteregie regions, while some 1,500 customers in Montreal found themselves in the dark.

Sherbrooke, located in the Eastern Townships, one of the hardest hit parts of the province, suspended all public transportation services.

By late Sunday, the storm had mostly moved out of Ontario and was hitting the Atlantic provinces with freezing rain reported in Fredericton and snow in Charlottetown. Freezing rain warnings were out for parts of Atlantic Canada.

Rob Kuhn, a forecaster with Environment Canada, said many Maritimers would see a replay of what hit parts of Ontario and Quebec.

"There could be quite an extended period of freezing rain right through Monday," Kuhn said in an interview Sunday.

Kuhn said because temperatures were expected to remain below freezing in the wake of the storm, there would be little melting of the ice caked on tree branches. Coupled with brisk winds the chances of branches following on to powerlines was likely to continue.

"If you've got already got compromised trees, expect to see problems, limbs still coming down under the weight of ice," Kuhn said.

"We'll be feeling the impacts of this storm for several days."

In Toronto, where warming centres were set up, Mayor Rob Ford called it one of the worst storms in the city's history.

"My house is freezing cold, I have little kids, we might have to go to a hotel tonight, I'm not quite sure what we're going to do," Ford said Sunday.

"It's not good to wake up and have a freezing cold shower."

Peberdy said crews would be working 10- to 12-hour shifts to repair the damage, but were focusing initially on getting power back to two hospitals and an east-end water-treatment plant.

"We don't want the water systems in Toronto to go down, and that's why we're focusing on that," Peberdy said.

The Toronto District School Board said late Sunday that its facilities would be closed Monday. Classes are over for the Christmas break, but there are 300 child care centres that would be affected.

The storm appeared to fall well short of the havoc wreaked 16 years ago, when more than two dozen people died.

At one point in January 1998, almost 10 per cent of the country's population -- about three million people -- were without power when four days of intermittent freezing rain entombed parts of eastern Ontario, New Brunswick and western Quebec.

The 2013 ice storm is probably the worst since 98, but the two don't compare, Kuhn said.

"The one from 98, the freezing rain amounts and ice secretion that I recall were 5 to 10 centimetres, so much more than what this one is."

Overall, power outages affected about 400,000 customers in Ontario, as ice-coated tree branches snapped and brought down power lines.

Toronto shut down streetcar service along with parts of the subway system, while regional commuter trains were delayed or suspended. The city's giant Yorkdale Shopping Centre also lost power for a period Sunday.

At Pearson, hopeful travellers snaked around check-in stands or stared forlornly at flight boards flashing delays or cancellations. Others passed the time hunched over smartphones and tablets.

Matthew Shields spent Saturday night in Toronto after his flight from Saint John, N.B., to his mother's home in London, Ont., was cancelled. Facing a 30-hour delay, he was instead trying Sunday to find a flight to Sarnia, Ont.

"The past two Christmases I elected to not travel, and in hindsight that was probably a good decision," Shields said.

"We can't control the weather. There's a lot of people trying to get to a lot of places."

-- With files from Will Campbell and Alex Posadzki in Toronto, Benjamin Shingler in Montreal