'It sucked': N.B. family spends Christmas without power

NB Power says almost every customer who lost power from last week’s windstorm has been reconnected, but those still off the grid are wondering if they’ve been forgotten.

Miranda and Matthew Virdaeus live in St. Stephen, N.B. with their two children and are now on their eighth day of no electricity.

“It’s easy to ignore if you’re not in it,” says Matthew. “But I’ve got a four-year-old and six-year-old.”

The family says getting information from NB Power about restoration has been difficult.

“An electrician won’t touch the wires if they’re pinned under a tree, so it sounds like we need to get NB Power to move the wires first,” says Matthew. “Then we need an electrician to fix the mast. And then NB Power has to come back out again to hook us up. We don’t know how many days we’re going to be between each of those steps.”

Miranda Virdaeus says part of her frustration stems from asking NB Power to remove trees month ago, which ultimately fell on power lines last week.

“They’re not doing the preventative work they need to,” says Miranda.

A NB Power spokesperson tells CTV News the utility will be reaching out directly to the Virdaeus family on Tuesday.

The family says their Christmas Day was spent cleaning up debris around their home and trying to stay warm.

“It sucked,” says Miranda. “We moved to St. Stephen from Riverview last year so we don’t really know anybody in the area, we have no family in the area. So we’ve been relying on the kindness of a couple neighbours that have come by. Yesterday, somebody bought by a generator they weren’t using.”

About 50 NB Power customers in Charlotte County woke up on Boxing Day morning to no electricity.

Nearly 1,500 customers had no power on Christmas Eve, which fell to about 500 on Christmas morning. More than 125,000 customers lost electricity during at least one part of the storm, according to NB Power.

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