269K customers in hard-hit Ontario areas still without power after weekend ice storm

As crews from across Ontario work around the clock to restore power to areas in the province hit hard by a weekend ice storm, authorities say it could take until the end of the week to fully restore electricity.

Tiziana Baccega Rosa, a spokesperson with Hydro One, told CityNews approximately 269,000 residential and commercial customers were still without power as of Tuesday morning. There were estimates of Friday at 9 p.m. to bring power back on to all those affected.

“This is one of the largest events we’ve seen as a company in terms of the scale and impact … We’re here and we’re not going to stop until every last customer is restored,” she said.

“We know this is not the news anyone wants to hear, but we want to give people the information so they can make the decisions that are best for them and their families.”

Baccega Rosa said since the weekend, crews were able to bring power back to around 667,000 customers.

She said electrical crews were brought from unaffected parts of Ontario to hard-hit areas such as Minden, Peterborough, Bracebridge, Orillia, Fenelon Falls and Tweed.

“You can imagine the amount of materials that are being required right now moving out throughout the province as requested from our crews. You’ve got mechanics and fleet helicopter pilots, our call centre, so it is all hands on deck,” Baccega Rosa said.

“If you think of water access-only customers in some areas, you know conditions have not even allowed for crews to assess in some areas so that’s where we’re using our helicopters to start doing those patrols.”

The storm covered roads and other surfaces with ice, causing hazardous driving conditions and damage to trees. Many facilities and parks in affected municipalities were ordered to close temporarily due to downed trees and unstable branches.

Baccega Rosa said Hydro One forestry crews are being sent ahead in certain areas to do wider-scale clearing of downed trees and vegetation so electrical crews can follow-up with work they need to do.

As the storm moved east, the storm also caused outages in Quebec. Hydro-Québec officials said there were around 3,000 customers still in the dark.

Environment Canada meteorologists issued a special weather statement for a stretch of Ontario where rain and freezing rain are expected between Wednesday and Thursday mornings, but they added the impact won’t be as significant as last weekend’s storm.

Parts of the Atlantic provinces and northeastern Quebec are under heavy rainfall or freezing rain warnings.

Meanwhile, encouraged people in affected regions to take increased precautions such as cooking outdoors and avoiding downed lines.

“It is virtually impossible to tell if it’s a power line or a telecom line, so we are advising that everyone treat a down line as though there’s electricity passing through it, report it to Hydro One or your local utility,” she said.

“Just stay at least 10 metres — that is visually think of three school bus lengths — because we don’t want anyone else getting hurt.”

Click here for an updated Hydro One power outage map.

With files from The Canadian Press