Thousands without power as wet weather continues across Nova Scotia
According to Nova Scotia Power's website, it could be 11 p.m. before service is restored in some areas
More than 6,000 Nova Scotia Power customers were without electricity Tuesday night as a wind and rain storm moved through the province, resulting in scattered outages.
As of 8:24 p.m. local time, the largest outages were in Baddeck, River Bourgeois and Sydney, according to Nova Scotia Power's website. At the peak of outages Tuesday morning, more than 12,000 customers were without power.
The utility said it could be 11 p.m. before service is restored in some areas.
Victoria County in Cape Breton is under a state of emergency following flooding in the area on Tuesday.
The state of emergency was declared after 9 p.m.
The county said residents are required to shelter in place until further notice.
Some schools were closed Tuesday, including all schools in the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional Centre for Education and the Strait Regional Centre for Education. For a full list of school cancellations, please visit CBC's Storm Centre.
Students at H.M. MacDonald Elementary School in Antigonish County had to stay at the school for a couple of hours beyond a planned early dismissal because the road leading to the school was washed out on one side and flooded on the other.
"We were just wanting to keep the kids here and safe," said principal Jerome Stewart. "We had just a regular school day other than that."
Students were sent home beginning at 2:20 p.m. and all were home by 3 p.m.
The storm was expected to move across Cape Breton and P.E.I., then on to Newfoundland.
Road closures
The Nova Scotia government announced several road closures around the province Tuesday due to washouts. The province was providing updates on road closures on the 511 Twitter page and on a map.
Hwy 245 in Maryvale right before it was closed by TIR. Another section about 2-3km down the road completely washed out for 20ft. <a href="https://twitter.com/CBCNS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CBCNS</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CTVAtlantic?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CTVAtlantic</a> <a href="https://t.co/A7igWkbF2x">pic.twitter.com/A7igWkbF2x</a>
—@smitty_1993More rain coming
CBC meteorologist Tina Simpkin said another 10 to 20 millimetres of rain was expected for mainland Nova Scotia on Tuesday, except Pictou and Guysborough counties, where 30 to 50 millimetres was expected to fall. Another 50 to 70 millimetres of rain was in the forecast for Cape Breton.
Gusty winds were also expected out of the southeast up to 80 km/h with the possibility of gusts up to 100 km/h along the coast.
By Tuesday at 8:30 p.m., Environment Canada had rainfall warnings in effect for all counties north of Pictou and Guysborough.
Wind warnings were also in place for Inverness County - south of Mabou, and Richmond, Victoria and Cape Breton counties, including Sydney.
Simpkin said flurries could mix with rain later in the day as temperatures drop.
Most flights were on time at the Halifax Stanfield International Airport, with a few cancellations. Flights were operating as scheduled at J.A. Douglas McCurdy Sydney Airport.
The Confederation Bridge was also open to all traffic.
Marine Atlantic, however, cancelled Tuesday's crossings to and from Newfoundland.
Deputy Chief Roy Hollett of Halifax Regional Fire & Emergency said no major damage was reported to the municipality following the storm.
"There were branches down, limbs down, some localized flooding but, as of this morning, when I received the updates from the other units, nothing was reported as any significant concern," Hollett said.
With files from Tina Simpkin