MONTREAL - Quebec's power utility has recruited help from Vermont and New Brunswick in an effort to restore electricity after heavy winds swept through the province on Friday, leaving 350,000 homes without power during the peak of the outage.
By 5 p.m. Saturday there were still 51,000 Quebec homes without electricity, including 7,000 in the Montreal area.
Four hours later there were just 29,000 homes affected by outages, including less than 4,000 in the Montreal area, according to Hydro Quebec.
The Laurentians, Monteregie and Montreal were the areas hardest hit by the gusty blasts, which felled trees and sent chunks of debris flying.
Fallen branches were seen littered throughout the city Saturday, as lawns, sidewalks and vehicles were littered with wood felled by the gusty blasts.
There were no reports of injuries, although many cars and other items were damaged as a result of the wind storm, which lasted throughout the afternoon and evening. Click here to see a photo gallery of some of the dramatic consequences of the violent winds.
The wind storm also wreaked havoc in Ontario where the central and eastern regions were slammed by winds of up to 90 km/h.
Hydro One says 46,000 customers are still without power Saturday, down from 126,000 on Friday. The utility says it expects the work to continue through the weekend.
