A nor’easter prompted school closures and power outages as it dumped snow and rain across the Maritimes overnight and into Thursday.

Schools were shut down in New Brunswick and 45,000 customers were without power at one point after a storm dumped 30 centimetres of snow on some parts of the province.

“Well, it makes it nice and Christmasy. Also, I got a day off from work,” said postal worker Gordon Thurber. “I work at the post office in Shediac. I have a day off, but I am working here, cleaning snow.”

“You get to make snowmans and forts and you can make snow angels and just play in it,” said Moncton resident Hannah Walker, who enjoyed a day home from school.

NB Power said heavy, wet snow weighed down trees and branches and felled power lines, leading to outages across the province.

More than 17,400 customers were still without power as of 5 p.m., with most outages reported in the Bouctouche, Fredericton, Moncton, Rothesay, Shediac and Sussex areas.

“You got no power, you got no coffee in the morning, you got no toast…your heat is off,” said Fredericton resident Murray Watt. “Oh yeah, absolutely an inconvenience for people living here in Canada during these cold winter days.”

NB Power says 82 crews are working to restore electricity across the province. Crews from Nova Scotia Power, Edmundston Energy and Saint John Energy are also assisting in the restoration efforts.

“We’ve also asked our crews from up north of the province to come down in the southern part of the province to help out,” said NB Power spokesperson Marie Andree Bolduc.

The utility said 85 per cent of those off the grid should see power restored Thursday evening, while 99 per cent of the outages should be restored by the end of Friday.

Some customers could be without power into the weekend, and possibly even longer.

While some crews are focused on restoration and reconnection, others are focused on tree-trimming, which is becoming a year-round effort.

“Even just this week, in preparation for this storm, we kind of ramped up the efforts,” said Bolduc. “We’re going to put an extra investment next year to keep the tree trimming an ongoing project.”

But some residents say that simply isn’t enough.

“I’ve got trees in my backyard that limbs are hanging all through the power lines, so I mean, it’s ridiculous,” said Watt. “I don’t understand that, the money that they lose, the customers that they make unhappy because they’re not doing the trimming.”

Two warming and charging centres were open Thursday afternoon in Fredericton, which was hit particularly hard by the storm.

Heavy, wet snow started falling on the capital since late Wednesday and as much as 20 centimetres is down in some areas.

“I can’t remember shoveling out this early in the year,” said Fredericton resident Joe Chamberlain. “I mean, late January and stuff, that’s pretty normal, but right now, it’s pretty ridiculous.”

RCMP Cpl. Chantal Farrah said that since Wednesday evening when the snow started, the department received reports of about 30 vehicles that had left the road or had been involved in minor accidents. One man was injured and taken to hospital Thursday as the result of a crash near Campbellton.

The weather is also affecting travel across the region. Some roads are slippery and snow-covered and several flights from Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton to Halifax Stanfield International Airport were cancelled early Thursday. Arrivals and departures from those airports were back to normal Thursday afternoon.

In Moncton, the city’s general foreman Jeff Scott said they had salting trucks on the streets Wednesday afternoon, and the full contingent of snowplows on the road by midnight.

Temperatures in Moncton hovered around 0 degrees Celsius for most of the day, making the snow soggy and heavy.

"There's an awful lot of moisture in the snow. It's wet and it's heavy and people are going to find it difficult to shovel," Scott told CTV's Canada AM early Thursday morning.

Mayhew Lloy of Moncton Public Works said the city’s snow-removal efforts are moving along smoothly.

“It’s all coming together. By the end of the day we should have everything cleaned up good and we will be concentrating on our efforts getting the sidewalks in shape,” said Lloy.

Schools were closed in P.E.I., where residents were hit with and snow and ice pellets. Maritime Electric said customers were experiencing “scattered outages” due to the weather and crews are working to restore electricity.

While New Brunswick and P.E.I. were hit by snow, rain affected many parts of Nova Scotia. Some roads in Truro are closed because of flooding.

There were no major outages in the province and most schools remained open, except for those in Cumberland County.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Andy Campbell and David Bell