About 49,000 homes and businesses lost power overnight in Quebec after Sandy's strong winds lashed the province.

Nearly 40, 000 of those buildings without power were in the Laurentians, with another 4,000 outages in the Eastern Townships. Just 1,700 clients in Montreal spent the night in the dark.

By noon Hydro-Quebec had restored power to 17,000 clients, and turned the switches back on for another 12, 000 by 2 p.m. The utility said it expected it would take another day to restore power to the remaining 20,000 people, and by 8 p.m., fewer than 5,000 were still in the dark across the province, mostly in the Lanaudiere and Laurentian areas.

Strong winds are expected to continue to hit Quebec throughout Tuesday as Sandy makes its way north. The hurricane quickly lost strength Monday after making landfall in New Jersey, and is now considered a post-tropical storm.

The storm is expected to weaken even more as it approaches Cornwall, Ottawa and Montreal. Meteorologists are predicting anywhere from 20 to 40 millimetres of rain for Southern and Central Quebec, with more in the Charlevoix region.

Far western Quebec could see snow as temperatures drop to the freezing point.

Sandy is still extremely wide, and its effects will be felt as far east as the Maritimes.

 

Flight cancellations

Dozens of flights in and out of Montreal are cancelled Tuesday because of strong winds and damage in other cities.

Most people knew about the cancellations well in advance, but Richard Lariviere was one traveller who arrived at Trudeau airport to learn he wouldn't be flying anywhere.

"Up to an hour ago on the website, the website was still saying that [my flight] was on schedule. As you can see it was not," said Lariviere.

More than 12,000 flights in all are cancelled along the eastern seaboard.

Flights to New York, Newark, Detroit, Boston and other locations won't resume until those cities re-open their airports.

Delta Airlines has already cancelled flights to Newark, New Jersey that were scheduled for Wednesday.

Multiple flights to Montreal from Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Toronto have been cancelled as well.

 

$10 billion in damage to U.S.

The effects of Sandy are far worse in the United States. Two million people are without power in New York State with another 4 million without power from the Carolinas to Ohio to New England.

The electical utility in New York City, Consolidated Edison, says it may take four days to restore power to Brooklyn and Manhattan, and a week or more for other areas.

A blizzard is hitting West Virginia Tuesday morning, dumping 30 to 60 centimetres of snow across the state, with more snow at higher elevations.

The power failures in NYC forced the New York University Tisch hospital to evacuate, sending 200 patients, including those on respirators and infants in intensive care, to other hospitals where generators were working.

Large areas of New York city and Atlantic City, New Jersey are flooded.

At least 50 buildings were destroyed by fire overnight in the Queens borough of New York City.

The storm killed at least 16 people in the U.S., and a Toronto woman died after being hit by a street sign that was blown by the wind.