Hydro crews were hard at work reconnecting thousands of residents across eastern Ontario and western Quebec Wednesday after a storm system knocked out power Tuesday night. Hydro Ottawa says all but a few customers who experienced power outages have had their power restored, as of 6:30 p.m. The company was reporting more than 23,000 customers without power across the city after the storm passed. “Our crews worked hard in difficult conditions caused by strong winds that downed trees and branches on power lines, and damaged poles and equipment. Thank you for your patience while our teams worked to safely and efficiently restore power,” Hydro Ottawa said Wednesday evening. As of 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Hydro Ottawa’s outage map was reporting fewer than 70 customers without power. The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board says two of its schools, Stonecrest Elementary School and West Carleton Secondary School, were closed because of the power outages. All other schools in Ottawa remained open, according to local school boards. Eastern Ontario Hydro One was reporting thousands of customers were still without power across eastern Ontario Wednesday morning. “Crews are working to restore power after severe winds caused outages across southwest, central and eastern Ontario,” a note on Hydro One’s website says. Around 16,000 Hydro One customers across the central-east and east regions were without power as of 12:30 p.m. Wednesday. More than 44,000 were out across Ontario. “In addition to broken poles and cross arms, damage has largely been caused by tree limbs/trees coming down on power lines and equipment and where the ground is very wet/soft, entire trees have been uprooted,” Hydro One says. “In some areas, restoration times will be affected by local roads being washed out due to scattered storms and access issues will delay crew access. Crews are assessing damage so that an estimated time of restoration can be assigned to each outage.” Hydro One estimates most customers should have power restored by the end of the day Wednesday. Western Quebec Hydro Quebec reported approximately 144,000 customers lost power Tuesday night. “The severe storms that swept through Quebec last night caused numerous outages. Gusts reaching over 100 km/h in some areas caused significant damage to the network, and several pieces of equipment need to be replaced. At the peak of the event, nearly 144,000 customers were without electricity,” Hydro Quebec said on its website. In the Outaouais region, Hydro Quebec was reporting 8,692 customers without power at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, mostly in the rural parts of the area. Estimated restoration times vary but the utility is expecting power to be restored some time Wednesday.
