HALIFAX — Thousands of Nova Scotia power customers remained off-grid Sunday in the aftermath of a powerful winter storm that blew through parts of the Maritimes 24 hours earlier.
By late in the afternoon Nova Scotia Power was reporting that just over 3,000 customers were still without electricity. The outages were scattered across the province, however the majority were in Lunenburg County on the South Shore.
Lia MacDonald, vice-president of transmission, distribution and delivery with the utility said 500 line crew were in the field working on restoration efforts with more than 300 deployed in areas of the South Shore.
MacDonald said it was estimated that power would be restored for most customers by later Sunday night.
"Our plan is that most people will be back by tonight," she said in an interview.
MacDonald said the communities hardest hit included St. Margarets Bay, Hubbards, Chester, Bridgewater and Liverpool. She said whiteout conditions and snow-clogged roads made restoration work difficult on Saturday.
"The lingering issues on the South Shore would be due to the ongoing challenging conditions with both road access and then in some cases the extent of debris that they (workers) find when they get to the wire."
MacDonald said the bulk of the damage to power lines was caused by tree branches blown by high winds.
The storm brought winds of 90 kilometres an hour and heavy snow to areas of western, central and northern Nova Scotia and led to some temporary road closures and some flight cancellations and delays at Halifax Stanfield International Airport on Saturday.
A few areas in southeastern New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island were also dealing with some scattered outages on Sunday morning.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 16, 2022.
The Canadian Press
