Gusting winds leave over 90,000 N.B. Power customers in the dark
More than 90,000 N.B. Power customers were without power Monday night as rain and wind continued to pummel parts of the province.
Charlotte County and the Fredericton region were hardest hit Monday evening. The outages in the Fredericton region nearly doubled from about 17,000 at 7 p.m. to about 28,000 at 9 p.m.
RELATED: Canada will see the world’s largest weather anomaly on Monday
Estimated restoration times were not listed for the vast majority of the outages in these two regions as of 10 p.m.
At 4 p.m. Monday, N.B. Power spokesperson Dominique Couture said there were 600 workers across the province working to restore power when conditions allowed.
"We are anticipating more outages to be reported throughout the day," Couture said, adding that customers experiencing outages should report them on the N.B. Power website.
Around 8 p.m. Monday night, the Confederation Bridge between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island was closed to all traffic because of the weather.
Ahead of the storm, mild temperatures arrived, with double digits for some areas of the province.
Environment Canada weather warnings for wind and rain were in place Monday night for southern, central, and southeastern New Brunswick. Warnings for just rain are in effect for western and northwestern areas..
The wind warning forecasts winds of 90 to 100 km/h that will end overnight Monday.
About 30 to 40 mm of rain was forecast, peaking in the evening and tapering to showers overnight. The warning said that similar storms have caused localized flooding, overflowing creeks and rivers, and shoulder erosion and washouts along roadways.
This is the second Monday in a row the province has been hit by a storm that included unseasonably warm weather, heavy rain and gusting winds. But "this isn't the fast-moving system that we saw last Monday," CBC meteorologist Tina Simpkin said.
The storm impacted all of the Maritime provinces.
The Environment Canada warning also advised residents to secure outdoor decorations.
N.B. Power said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that its emergency operations centre was open and co-ordinating restoration efforts.
Last week, some residents in the Kennebecasis Valley area went without power from Monday to Thursday. A spokesperson said at the time that efforts were slow because crews could not go up in buckets until wind speeds calmed down.
Thumbnail courtesy of Roger Cosman/CBC.
The story was originally written and published for CBC News.
