More than 20,000 families braved the freezing cold in their homes this weekend as power outages took longer than usual to repair.
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“It was cold enough for me to have boots on my feet and a coat in my apartment,” says Nancy Tremblay.
The resident of Villeray, Montreal, ran out of power around 10 a.m. Saturday morning.
“When I saw info discs around 3 p.m. that the power wouldn’t be restored until midnight, I told myself I couldn’t stay at home,” she says.
She therefore had to turn to a plan B: a hotel that accepts animals since she could not leave her dog at home alone.
“It tears a hole in the budget, it wasn’t planned. It was still $200 to go to the hotel,” says Ms. Tremblay.
At the same time, the municipality of Villeray-Saint-Michel-Parc-Extension opened an overnight community center to accommodate those who could not stay at home because of the breakdown and had nowhere to go.
By Sunday noon, 8,300 households had not yet found electricity, 2,900 of them in the metropolis.
“We have additional teams being moved to Montreal as that’s where most of the customers are absent,” said Jonathan Côté, spokesman for Hydro-Quebec.
About twenty teams are currently deployed on the island of Montreal.
difficult conditions
Extreme temperatures have slowed Hydro-Québec’s work.
“Yesterday, when it was very, very cold, our workers had to take frequent breaks to ensure their health and safety,” explains Mr. Côté.
According to Hydro-Québec, the breakdowns were a little more complex than usual. In particular, there is talk of posts at the back of houses that need to be replaced or transformers that may have been broken by the cold, sometimes in hard-to-reach places.
That’s especially true for Claude Williamson, who lost power around 4:30 p.m. Friday after a transformer blew up near his backyard.
“It was still a big job because they couldn’t get the nacelle up to the level of the transformer,” explains the resident of Beauharnois in Montérégie.
Photo provided by Claude Williamson.
Hydro-Québec workers are busy checking a transformer near Claude Williamson’s home.
On Saturday morning, Mr. Williamson’s thermostat read only 5 degrees. He then left home because of the cold.
When he returned late in the evening after power was restored, he found his spa pipes had frozen and then exploded.
Fortunately, the pipes in the house were spared. “We left little drops of water to make sure it didn’t freeze,” says Mr. Williamson.
Hydro-Quebec peaked at around 5:00 p.m. Saturday with 23,000 customers without power.
“It is still relatively small compared to the entire network. But for those who have collapsed, it’s particularly difficult and complex,” says Jonathan Côté.