Some Quebecers will likely wait weeks before severely damaged power lines are fixed
After this weekend's fierce storm, some Quebecers are being told to hunker down and get ready to live on generators, or without power, for several weeks.
In the town of Ste-Adele in the Laurentians, for example, the seriousness of the damage is easy to see.
"We had hurricane winds come through this area," said Darryl Craig, one resident showing the destruction near his home, with several trees knocked down.
"It uprooted some trees and basically our power lines are all down," he said. "You can see the wire and everything."
The mangled wires supply electricity to his entire block, and it could be weeks before it's all repaired.
"Apparently Hydro now is prioritizing all the roads in the front of the houses, and we're going to be another 10 to 14 days without power, or [before] someone coming to get the lines fixed and the trees cut down," he said.
He's using a generator, like most of his neighbours. But now gas is getting hard to find locally.
"We came yesterday morning so I [could] have two tanks of gas, but when we came yesterday in the evening there was no more gas," one local reported.
People weren't prepared for an emergency on this scale, most agree.
And for some, it's even worse -- for example, having four trees collapse not onto your power lines but onto your house, which is the situation facing Michel Tetrault, also of Ste-Adele.
"It came like a white cloud," he recalled. He could see "nothing for about 30 seconds."
Then he tried to open his door I tried to open the door," discovered immediately that was a bad idea, "and after... 30 seconds everything was down," he said.
The repairs to his home will cost about $100,000, he says.
Hydro-Quebec crews are working overtime across the Laurentians and Lanaudiere, the two hardest-hit regions in the province.
But the utility company says that while many of the repairs can be done quickly, some simply can't.
In Blainville, 80 per cent of outages can be fixed within a day, says Hydro-Quebec spokesperson Caroline Des Rosiers.
The rest will have to wait, she said. As of Monday afternoon, there were 1,400 separate outages responsible for the nearly 200,000 people who were then without power (as of Monday evening, the number had sunk below 175,000).
What is working well is neighbourly support, said Bob Luck, as people help each other clean up.
"That's what we appreciate," he said.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Fluid in eye cells can 'boil' if you watch the eclipse without protection: expert
Millions of people in parts of Eastern and Atlantic Canada will be able to see the rare solar eclipse happening on April 8. But they should only look up if they have proper eye protection, experts say.
CRA no longer requiring 'bare trust' reporting in 2023 tax return
The Canada Revenue Agency announced Thursday it will not require 'bare trust' reporting from Canadians that it introduced for the 2024 tax season, just four days before the April 2 deadline.
NEW More unauthorized products for skin, sexual enhancement, recalled: Here are the recalls of this week
Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency recalled various items this week, including torches, beef biltong and unauthorized products related to skin care and sexual enhancement.
Where is the worst place for allergy sufferers in Canada?
The spring allergy season has started early in many parts of Canada, with high levels of pollen in some cities already. Experts weigh in on which areas have it worse so far this season.
Do these exercises for core strength if you can't stomach doing planks
Planks are one of the most effective exercises for strengthening your midsection, as they target all of your major core muscles: the transverse abdominis, rectus abdominis, external obliques and internal obliques. Yet despite the popularity of various 10-minute plank challenges, planking is actually one of the most dreaded core exercises, according to many fitness experts.
He didn't trust police but sought their help anyway. Two days later, he was dead
Jameek Lowery was among more than 330 Black people who died after police stopped them with tactics that aren’t supposed to be deadly, like physical restraint and use of stun guns, The Associated Press found.
Grandparent scam: London, Ont., senior beats fraudsters not once, but twice
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
Polar ice is melting and changing Earth's rotation. It's messing with time itself
One day in the next couple of years, everyone in the world will lose a second of their time. Exactly when that will happen is being influenced by humans, according to a new study, as melting polar ice alters the Earth’s rotation and changes time itself.
Sunshine list: These were the Ontario public sector's highest earners in 2023
Ontario released its annual sunshine list Thursday afternoon, noting that the largest year-over-year increases were in hospitals, municipalities, and post-secondary sectors.