Cape Breton communities still feel effects of Fiona one year after disastrous storm

Amanda McDougall lives in Glace Bay, one of the communities hardest hit by post-tropical storm Fiona. On Sept. 24, 2022, she remembers high winds shaking her home like she had never felt before.

While her home didn't sustain damage on Sept. 24, 2022, the mayor of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality knew the same wasn't true for people across the province. Even a year after the storm, CBRM is still tallying the damage.

"We're still living through Fiona," she said. "But we're talking about millions of dollars, for sure. It's literally unearthing the damage of Fiona. It's still happening."

McDougall said the municipality continues to deal with Fiona debris at the landfill. She said tree-clearing efforts are ongoing.

While CBRM is still counting the cost of Fiona, a recent report says it is one of the top-10 costliest natural disasters in Canadian history. 

McDougall said the damage from Fiona was widespread, unlike the 2016 floods that impacted a section of the municipality near downtown Sydney.

As the municipality prepares for future storms, McDougall said upgrades to infrastructure and communication lines are needed.

However, McDougall says delays caused by bureaucracy need to be addressed as soon as possible.

"The way it works is that the municipality has to send a request to the province, and the province has to send that request to the federal government," she said. "We weren't getting anything back."

For future storms, McDougall said she hopes to see fewer barriers when requesting help.

She said seeing officials from other levels of government flying in, taking pictures near areas of destruction and not following through on promises is frustrating.

"Not for me as a mayor, but knowing that there were people depending on those promises being kept and it didn't happen," she said.

Power infrastructure

Nova Scotia Power says it dealt with significant damage to the power grid, calling Fiona the largest storm it had experienced.

Matt Drover, the storm lead for the utility, said the wind field for Fiona covered the entire province. At its peak, 450,000 customers were without power.

To deal with clearing and restoration efforts, NSP brought crews in from around across Canada and New England. Drover said efforts to reconnect customers was historic, and so was the cost.

"The overall cost was roughly $115 million to make those repairs," he said.

In some cases, Drover said multiple trees were falling onto the same line, creating difficulties in clearing damage. To help deal with this, the utility is investing more money to keep power lines free from vegetation.

"On average we were spending about $20 to 25 million per year and we've increased that investment this year to be about $32 million," Drover said regarding tree-clearing efforts.

Over the next five years, he expects that number to increase to $40 million per year.

In certain areas of the province, NSP is also installing more robust poles. They feature thicker wires and have taller and wider poles. One was recently installed in Sydney River.

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