Prepare for prolonged outages, says N.B. Power, as storm cleanup begins
New Brunswickers need to be prepared for prolonged power outages, said Nicole Poirier, vice-president of operations at N.B. Power, adding that it's too early to provide specific estimates.
As the province started to clean up from Monday's storm, public safety officials spoke to the media Tuesday afternoon in Fredericton.
"I would say the entire province was hit. Obviously Charlotte County, southwest New Brunswick, was one of the hardest hit, but we had outages throughout the entire province," Poirier said.
FORECAST: Intense rainfall rates hit parts of the East Coast with threat for 200+ mm
About 88,000 customers were still affected as of Tuesday afternoon.
Kyle Leavitt, director of the New Brunswick Emergency Measures Organization, said there were no known injuries so far, but many roads and buildings have been damaged across the province.
"While we're thankful for that, as mentioned, the threat from the storm is not over. There are downed power lines," Leavitt said.
Public Safety Minister Kris Austin said that the road to Blacks Harbour and the Grand Manan ferry, which had been closed by downed trees and lines, has been reopened to at least one lane.
"Lots of damage, of course, and many parts of the province are affected.That's why this will not be a one-day event," Austin said.
Burnt wires on the ground beside Fredericton's Royal Road. The earth was charred and melted copper was visible. (Ed Hunter/CBC)
Explosions of colour
The sky lit up in bright blue, orange, red and green on Monday night as tens of thousands of people across the province found themselves with no power as lines went down and transformers blew.
Heather Milley and her son Caelin were witness to the explosions of colour that lit up the Monday night sky.
"We kept joking saying this is our version of the northern lights," Heather Milley recalled.
The two live on Royal Road on Fredericton's north side, which was partially closed for a period of time Tuesday morning, the downed power lines were moved to the side of the road. Some of the lines had charred the ground and were still giving off a burnt smell hours later.
Caelin said the Monday night show was "a little scary" because there was fire on the power lines
But, it did mean the day off for Caelin because many schools were closed.
Milley said there is a power line hanging near her property with a tree on it, so she expects it will be awhile before her power is restored.
Still, she and Caelin remain in good spirits.
"We try to make the best of everything. What we're going to do is, we don't know if we'll have our power for Christmas, but we can still get along, we can still play games, go outside and make the best of it," she said.
In Fredericton, the city said Willie O'Ree Place and the Grant-Harvey Centre are open for warming and charging until 11 p.m. today.
In western New Brunswick, a warming and charging centre is open at the Canterbury Community Centre at 22 Mill St.
Damage in southwest New Brunswick
Pocologan resident Chris Smith lost power Monday evening but has a generator. Smith also owns houses in St. George. He and his family arrived in the town early Tuesday morning and were still sawing fallen trees and clearing debris at noon.
"We had major winds and a lot of trees down, a lot of roofs were damaged and stuff like that, but people are working through," Smith said.
Daniel Leblanc, who runs the Independent Grocer in St. George, says the store's power went out and as of Tuesday afternoon, it was running on a generator and wasn't able to take debit or credit payments.
"Mostly everybody that's in doesn't have any power or they're very limited, or they don't can't get fuel for the generator, because there's only one or two gas stations open in the area," he said.
'Devastation'
St. Stephen resident Gail Boucher said she's lived in the area for 30 years and her husband used to be a lineman for N.B. Power.
"Never seen anything like this before. So windy, scary, [thought] the roof was gonna come off the house," she said.
"Lee was nothing compared to this. I don't even think this has a name but we will give it a name, right. Devastation before Christmas."
In Saint John and St. Stephen, 93 km/h was the top speed recorded, according to Environment Canada.
Brad Henderson, the mayor of Saint Andrews, called the storm a "significant weather event."
Post-tropical storm Lee felt mild compared to the storm Monday, he said.
Henderson said public works crews were back on the scene at 4:30 a.m. clearing debris from roads.
86 calls for service
According to Environment Canada, wind speeds at the Fredericton Airport on Monday were clocked at 100 km/h.
Fredericton Fire Chief Dwayne Killingbeck said the storm brought in 86 calls for service between 4 p.m. and midnight on Monday. He said at any given time, there were 14 calls in the queue. Extra crews and staff were called in to assist, he said.
Killingbeck said this storm was less significant than Arthur, which swept the province in 2014, and more significant than Lee.
He said with tropical storms, officials can watch them come up the coast, giving a week ore more of a heads up. But since Monday's storm wasn't a tropical storm, there wasn't the same advance warning.
"I think there's going to be a common sound you hear, despite no power in the community, the common sound you're going to hear today is probably chainsaws," he said.
Thumbnail courtesy of Jeanne Armstrong/CBC.
The story was originally written and published for CBC News. It contains files from Information Morning Fredericton, Saint John and Roger Cosman, Hannah Rudderham.
