N.B. Power aims to have all power restored by Christmas
About 38,000 customers still without power Wednesday afternoon
After a storm rocked New Brunswick with high winds and heavy rain on Monday and overnight into Tuesday, nearly 38,000 N.B. Power customers were still without power Wednesday afternoon, mostly in Charlotte County and the Fredericton area.
But N.B. Power is more hopeful today that people won't be spending any holidays in the dark.
"Our goal right now is to have all of our customers restored by Christmas," said Nicole Poirier, vice-president of operations with N.B. Power.
N.B. Power president Lori Clark said that since a peak of about 129,000 affected customers on Monday, about 85,000 outages have been fixed so far by crews.
All hospitals have power, she said, adding that crews from Saint John Energy, Edmundston Energy, and some private contractors are also help.
"I know being without power is very difficult for our customers, especially as we approach the holidays," Clark said.
But many still remain without power, and officials had warned to be prepared for "prolonged outages" on Tuesday.
'These people are stranded,' says mayor
John Craig, mayor of the municipality of Eastern Charlotte, is concerned about trees still blocking Wellington Road in Blacks Harbour.
"There's a couple hundred people who were stranded and caught down there for a couple days. It's not so bad they're out of power, it's the point they can't get out of there,' Craig said.
"And we can't get in there, we can't get a firetruck in there, we can't get an ambulance down there. These people are stranded."
Craig said that N.B. Power crews are doing a good job, but wants this street to be more of a priority. At one point, trees blocked the main road to Blacks Harbour and the Grand Manan ferry terminal, before it was cleared.
"This road has to be cleared, and they're not making it a priority for the safety of those people."
No one in Harvey has power
As crews work to restore power, the rural community of Harvey, about a half-hour's drive southwest of Fredericton, remained fully without power on Wednesday.
"The whole place went down and it's never come back," said Mayor Richard Corey. "The entire 350 square miles of [Harvey Rural Community] has been without power since then. That's it."
As residents went onto day three of no power, Corey said, he needs to have clearer iformation from N.B. Power and the Emergency Management Organization about when power might be restored for his community.
When he contacted N.B. Power and the province to ask about restoration times, he was redirected to the N.B. Power outage website, the same resource that is publicly available to residents.
"The better we're able to communicate to our residents," Corey said. "The better they'll feel. When they call me and I say 'well look at the nb power website' well that doesn't give them much confidence.
"We need to get better at honest, truthful communication. If it's going to be 48 hours then say 48 hours."
When asked about communication with municipalities, Clark said they utility has someone working directly with EMO, who would then communicate with the communities
"We also have in some cases, municipalities reaching out to us if we have information we can share with them, we would. But a lot of that communication is through EMO."
Poirier added that N.B. Power has "one resource internally dedicated to mayors and communities … and he would be working hourly and daily with those municipalities to provide them updates."
Residents grappling with outages
Mavis Doucette, a resident of Hanwell, a suburb outside Fredericton, found herself in a tricky situation when she lost power. She had three freezers filled with food and needed to act quickly.
Luckily, a friend called her on Tuesday to say she could make room in her own freezer. The two worked to clean out Doucette's freezers and still had to throw out $300 to $400 worth of food.
But Doucette saved the most important things, about $700 worth, and the food is now in her friend's freezer.
"It just shows you that there's good people out there willing to help," Doucette said.
Couture told Information Morning Fredericton on Wednesday that damage is extensive, but N.B. Power was prepared and has additional crews coming out to help.
She said the priority for restoration was "critical infrastructure," such as health centres, fire and police.
"That was the main focus yesterday," she said.
"Then we have to restore power or address things that are public safety concerns. So, for example, if we see live wires ... And then we focus on the outages that can bring back the most amount of customers in the least amount of time."
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With files from Sam Farley, Lars Schwarz, and Frederic Cammarano