Late December storm cost Hydro-Quebec $55 million

The winter storm that fell in late December in Quebec cost Hydro-Québec more than $55 million, the Crown corporation revealed Thursday.

Between the morning of Dec. 23 and Dec. 25, a total of 7,529 power outages were caused across the province by "a storm of rare intensity characterized by very high winds."

A total of 640,000 Hydro-Québec customers were affected by the outages; at the height of the storm, early on the evening of Dec. 24, some 380,700 homes were without power. Within 63 hours of the outage, 85 per cent of customers had been reconnected, thanks in part to the hard work of the 1,200 workers deployed in the field for a week. By Dec. 27, 93 hours after the peak of the storm, 95 of homes had power back.

Hydro-Québec workers replaced more than 500 poles and over 530 transformers. Linemen and women worked the equivalent of 160,000 hours and installed some 63 kilometres of power lines. The vast territory affected, the prolonged duration of the bad weather and the difficult access to certain intervention areas made their task difficult.

Many of these workers voluntarily postponed their holiday leave to assist their colleagues 'in severe weather conditions,' the utility said in a statement thanking its staff.

"The holiday season is undoubtedly one of the worst times of the year to be without power. We know that and that's why we rolled up our sleeves and worked tirelessly until all homes were reconnected. Our linemen and women were there once again, not hesitating to make themselves available voluntarily during the holiday season, knowing that our customers needed them. I would like to thank our customers for their patience and understanding," said Hydro-Québec president and CEO Sophie Brochu.

However, these tens of thousands of extra hours of work will have the effect of postponing planned work on the network for the next few weeks.

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- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Jan. 19, 2023 This story was written with the financial assistance of the Meta Exchange and The Canadian Press for news.