Ice storm knocks out power for over a million people in Canada

More than a million people were without power on Thursday after an ice storm hit Canada’s two most-populated provinces ahead of a holiday weekend, bringing freezing rain and strong winds that toppled trees and weighed down power lines.

Over a million people did not have power in Quebec and about 120,000 in Ontario by midday (1600 GMT), according to Poweroutage.com. The two provinces account for more than half of Canada’s total population of about 39 million.

Electricity providers in both provinces were working to restore power, but repairs were expected continue for days, meaning many Canadians could spend Easter weekend in the dark.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was elected to parliament in a Montreal constituency, offered to provide federal assistance if required.

“It’s a very difficult moment…the power being down for so many folks, the trees coming down, hurting buildings and cars and whatnot, is of course an ongoing concern,” Trudeau told reporters on a street in his district as crews cleaned up a fallen tree behind him.

Montreal is among the worst hit areas in Quebec, accounting for about half of the total outages in the largely French-speaking province.

“Seeing all these beautiful trees down, seeing lives disrupted, seeing similar challenges .. (it) will be a difficult Easter weekend for a number of families,” Trudeau said.

There were 1,100 workers trying to restore power overnight and Thursday morning in Quebec, the province’s electricity provider said, warning that more outages could still occur.

Hydro-Quebec was hoping to restore power for about 70% of customers by Friday midnight, an executive at the utility said in a televised briefing.

“Unfortunately, it is the start of a long weekend and certain areas are more complex that we will not be able to reconnect immediately,” said Regis Tellier, Hydro-Quebec’s vice president of operations and maintenance.

In the city of Ottawa, crews were expected to restore power for a large portion of some 65,000 affected customers by noon, mayor Mark Sutcliffe said.

Some areas in the national capital “remain hazardous due to fallen debris and power outages affecting traffic signals,” Sutcliffe said.