Photo: Nova Scotia Power
The work continues by Nova Scotia Power crews after a windstorm hit the province hard on Friday night. With some wind gusts measured at 120 km/h, it knocked out power to over 120,000 customers.
More than 600 crew members have been working around the clock, but many of the outages are small, so it will be slow going to get everyone back on the grid. As of 6 a.m., Monday, the number of customers without power had dropped to around 900.
“Our crews have been working through some challenging conditions with high wind bringing trees and branches into power lines, broken poles and at times, poor visibility,” said Storm Lead Pam Scully-Porier, in a statement.
A tree in a power line in Lower Sackville.
Photo: Nova Scotia Power
Gusts reached more than 110 km/h, even over 120 km/h in certain parts of Cape Breton.
A tree in power lines in Louisburg
Photo: Nova Scotia Power
“We want our customers to know we are doing everything we can to get their power back on,” said Scully-Porier. “Along with our crews in the field, we’ll also be using a helicopter to patrol power lines in different parts of the province today to look for damage.”
Nova Scotia Power said to please treat all fallen cables and wires as if they are live with electricity, no matter the type of wire.
The utility added that you should stay at least two power poles away from downed lines, do not try to move them yourself and obey signage around a work site.
Photo: Nova Scotia Power
Ahead of the storm on Friday, Scully-Porier, told Acadia News they will be coordinating efforts to restore power from their Emergency Operations Centre.
“We bring in folks from across the business, representing customer care, representing operations and make sure that we have a centralized gathering to respond to outages,” said Scully-Porier.
She added, “We restore power in a specific order, starting with any public safety concerns. We then focus on high-voltage transmission lines to get the largest number of customers restored.
From there, we work with EMO to focus on critical services like hospitals, shelters, water facilities and telecommunications, followed by area-specific restoration.
Meteorologist Ian Hubbard told us the system was from a cold front moving in with significant winds ahead of it.
A rainfall warning was also in place for parts of central and northern Nova Scotia, with up to 40 mm that could fall.
Numerous flights into Stanfield International Airport had either been delayed or cancelled. The weather has also impacted some outbound flights on Friday night and Saturday morning.
-with files from Scott Pettigrew
