Two people died and nearly a million people were still without electricity Thursday evening after an ice storm passed through eastern Canada, which caused extensive material damage, particularly in Montreal.
The storm affected Quebec and Ontario, the two most populous provinces in Canada. This is the biggest outage on Quebec’s power grid since the 1998 ice storm, which plunged the province into chaos for several weeks.
Two deaths have been recorded by authorities: a resident of eastern Ontario killed by a falling tree on Wednesday, and a 60-year-old in Quebec fatally injured by a branch while trying to clear his garden on Thursday.
“It’s a tough day for Montrealers, for people across Quebec and parts of Ontario who are suffering from the power outages,” said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, while in Montreal.
On Thursday evening, road services were still hard at work clearing streets and roads littered with thousands of fallen trees due to the weight of the ice, often by damaging power lines.
“Montreal is devastated” but the situation is “under control,” said Quebec Minister of Economy and Energy Pierre Fitzgibbon during a press briefing Thursday, as freezing rain warnings were lifted. .
The authorities called for caution, in particular advising against wooded areas and the population from approaching trees and fallen wires. In Montreal, Mount Royal, the hill that dominates the city, has been closed.
Many centers have been opened to accommodate residents without electricity, as temperatures approach zero degrees and restoring power to everyone could take several days.
In total, nearly a million homes were still without electricity early Thursday evening, the vast majority of them in Quebec, even if some lines had been restored.
Traffic lights, bicycles, cars, vegetation… in Montreal, everything was covered by a thick layer of ice. 3 to 4 cm of freezing rain fell on the city in a few hours.
“In the last 20 years, it’s the worst ice storm we’ve had,” Jean-Marc Grondin told Agence France-Presse. The 64-year-old retiree, who lives in the Plateau, a central district of the city, went out to see the electrical transformer which caught fire after a tree fell on Wednesday.
A few meters further, city agents were busy, saws in hand. “It’s going to take several weeks to clean up the whole town,” said Samuel, a municipal officer who did not give his last name.
“Unfortunately, we can think that with climate change, there will be more and more events of this type in the coming years,” acknowledged François Legault, Premier of Quebec.
