Dark, cold night awaits many New Brunswickers in storm's aftermath

New Brunswickers are facing the prospect of spending at least another night in the dark as crews continue to clean up after Saturday night's damaging windstorm.

As of 5:20 p.m. 70,094 NB Power customers remained without power and the New Brunswick Emergency Measures Organization says some people could be without power for days.

That may lead to a cold night for New Brunswickers who heat with electricity as some areas of the province will see temperatures drop below freezing tonight according to Environment Canada.

Roland Langis of Dieppe has been without power since Saturday night and uses electric heat. He's not looking forward to the drop in temperature.

"It's certainly not going to be a pleasant period of time," said Langis.

"Other than pile on the blankets … that'll be pretty much it."

Langis lost power around 10 p.m. Saturday night.

"It was windy and then all of a sudden there was a … flicker and then an outage, and then it came back on again, then another outage," said Langis.

"Finally the third time it went out for good."

It will also be a cold night for Dakota Jones.

He's homeless and lives in a tent in Fredericton. His tent almost blew away in the storm.

He said if a friend hadn't noticed the tent pegs coming up, he may have gone along with the tent.

"The tent was just coming out of the ground," he said. "I eventually had to sit up because the tent was coming right in on me."

Melissa Langlais, who lives in a rural area outside Fredericton, said she lost power around 9:30 p.m. Saturday.

She tried to report her outage to NB Power, but had little luck.

"I tried calling NB Power but the line was busy because everyone's calling I'm sure," said Langlais.

NB Power said on Twitter they were experiencing "high call volumes" and advised people to report their outages online.

Paul MacArthur still has power, but a telephone pole on his street may change that. It snapped in two and to have it repaired the power will have to be turned off.

"We know that that's coming so we're all sort of trying to charge all our devices," said MacArthur.

The north of the province wasn't spared either.

Scot Harding estimates about 50 trees fell near his property in Tabusintac.

"It was just almost like a tornado. ... The trees were just dancing all over the place, snapping like matchsticks," said Harding.

"We had to cut our way out."