One of the worst blizzards since 1998; 952,000 homes in Quebec without electricity

One of the worst snowstorms since the 1998 disaster wreaked havoc across southwestern Quebec on Wednesday, leaving 15 to 30 mm of snow in its wake and leaving more than 950,000 homes without power. That is more than one in five dwellings.

• Read more: [EN IMAGES] Snow storms, sleet and strong winds: System to hit southern Quebec

In Montreal alone, more than 445,000 families had to resign themselves to a candlelit dinner and spend the evening in darkness.

The weight of the 15 to 25 mm of snow that fell on the island, depending on the sector, was greater than the many trees and branches that fell in the four corners of the city, causing material damage in addition to breakages. , especially by damaging parked cars.

“Teams from the City of Montreal and Hydro-Québec are everywhere in Montreal to ensure safety and restore power to homes affected by the outage,” promised Montreal Mayor Valéry Plante later in the evening.

In the face of uncertainty, schools located on the island of Montreal will be closed on Thursday, school service centers Montreal and Pointe-de-l’Ille and the Anglo-Montreal school board announced.

The road network was also heavily affected, with the Ministry of Transport (MTQ) forced to close the Victoria Bridge completely due to icing. Highway 730 in Saint-Constant was closed for the evening after a 53-foot truck overturned, completely blocking the lanes without causing any injuries.

Several closures and incidents were reported by MTQ throughout the day. However, the Sûreté du Québec did not report any major accidents.

“It’s definitely a big event,” Canada’s Environment Canada spokesman Dominic Morin admitted bluntly, pointing out that the amount of snow received was impressive.

At Montreal-Trudeau Airport, one in six flights had to be canceled and one in four was delayed, according to specialty site Flightaware.

Snow also fell heavily on Montreal’s south coast, causing more than 200,000 breaks in Monterrey. The North Shore was mostly avoided during the first half of the day, but in the evening about 120,000 breaks accumulated between Laval, Lanatier and Laurentians.

Outhouse in the dark

All things considered, however, the worst hit by the storm was the Outais. Dominique Morin said that almost 30 mm of snow has fallen in Ottawa and Catino.

The massive snow accumulation left more than 130,000 households without power, a number that was down to 125,000 by evening, or 55% of customers in the region.

By evening, regional police said 96% of the MRC des Collines-de-l’Outauais around Gatineau was in darkness.

“Our emergency call center is currently receiving a high volume of calls about fallen trees or branches on public roads. Therefore, we invite you to limit your calls to 911 for emergencies only,” noted the police of the MRC des Collines-de-l’Outauais.

Specifically, the municipality of Cantli decided to open its community center to allow citizens to recharge their electronic devices, shower or simply warm up.

Across the Ottawa River, Ottawa faced about 64,000 outages during the evening.

The blizzard also destroyed light rail service on the Confederation line in Ottawa, losing power. Passengers were evacuated by emergency services.

One of the worst storms since 1998

Hydro-Québec put more than 500 workers on the ground to restore the situation.

“As the weather event is still ongoing, further outages may occur and the situation may develop further on the ground. So unfortunately it is not possible to provide a specific recovery time for each location,” the state-owned company said.

A sign of a large number of breakdowns, an interactive map of breakdowns, used to get an idea of ​​​​the recovery time at home, does not work in the afternoon.

Wednesday’s storm, before its arrival, was compared to a storm that hit Quebec in April 2019, knocking out power to about 400,000 homes, mainly on Montreal’s North Shore.

“We are not in the same position. In 2019 there was snow after the storm, which made the recovery difficult”, Dominique Morin pointed out, however, recalling that the Thursday following the storm this year was a warm day with snow melting.

In terms of the number of subscribers without power, Wednesday’s storm is comparable to the violent winds that left 980,000 homes in the dark in the fall of 2019. The damage was qualified by Prime Minister François Legault as “the worst of the 1998 blizzard”.

Despite the setbacks caused by the storm, residents of the Southwest can take comfort in the fact that Sunday is the last winter storm before the arrival of a fine spring, according to Environment Canada’s forecast.