Heavy snow batters New Brunswick, thousands without power

The thick blanket of snow that covered New Brunswick overnight left thousands of people waking up to power failures.

But by Monday afternoon, NB Power reported just 51 incidents affecting 1,387 customers across the province.

Outages in Fredericton dropped to 354 after topping more than 5,000 earlier in the day. The highest number of remaining outages was in Sackville, where NB Power reported 665.

"Crews have made good progress and we expect to have most customers restored by early evening. Incidents affecting smaller amounts of customers will be cleaned up by midnight, barring unforeseen circumstances," said Heather MacLean, a spokeswoman for NB Power.

Heavy snow began falling late Sunday night in the New Brunswick capital. As of early Monday morning, Fredericton and southern York County were still under a blizzard warning.

Environment Canada said as of 4 a.m., 30 centimetres of snow was already reported in the capital city. A total snowfall of up to 40 centimetres was being forecast by Environment Canada for Monday.

In Moncton, residents are facing a winter storm warning, while a storm-surge warning has been issued for coastal areas in southeastern New Brunswick.

Environment Canada is predicting snowfall amounts of 15-30 cm in the Moncton region. In coastal areas, water levels of 0.9 to 1.2 metres above normal are being forecast for Monday, coupled with pounding surf.

However, the storm surges have yet to materialize. Areas between the Acadian Peninsula and Miramichi already experienced high tide levels at noon and there was no major flooding reported.

The next place Environment Canada will be watching is Shediac, where high tide is expected at 5 p.m. At this point, waters are expected to be higher than normal, but no significant flooding is predicted.

A winter storm warning is still in effect for the Saint John region. At 4:45 a.m., Environment Canada reported snowfall amounts of 15-30 cm with strong winds reducing visibility.

The RCMP in New Brunswick are warning people to stay off the roads Monday morning.

Police say the winds are causing drifting and whiteout conditions across the province.

Plows 'trying to do the best they can'

"Across the province the RCMP are urging people to stay off the road unless it is a complete emergency situation," said Jean-Guy Chapman, an RCMP dispatcher.

"The plows are out and about trying to do the best they can. We are experiencing some heavy whiteout conditions across the province with some snow drifting causing a lot of problems."

The Confederation Bridge was closed for several hours to all traffic because of high winds, but was eventually reopened for cars and vans only.

Saint John already braved one snowstorm last week but even with that recent experience, city crews are having difficulty clearing roads and highways.

The brunt of the snow is over in Saint John, but the leftovers are causing problems for NB Power.

"It'll definitely be the wind and if some freezing rain occurs, that will add to the mix as well," MacLean said.

"Certainly the winds are very, very strong."