Power out for thousands across Maritimes amid strong winds

For the third Monday in a row, a storm system moved through the Maritimes.

High winds and heavy rain impacted much of the region Monday afternoon, with more expected overnight.

Environment Canada issued warnings for all three Maritime provinces.

OUTAGES

Nova Scotia Power said in a news release that it was activating its emergency operations centre on Monday to respond quickly to possible outages.

"What we are expecting though is that there will be a prolonged period of winds above 80 kilometers an hour, which may delay some of those restorations, but as soon as winds get low enough that it's safe to get out there we will be restoring power as quickly as possible," said Nova Scotia Power storm lead Matt Drover.

There were 470 outages affecting 31,333 customers in the province as of 9 p.m., according to the Nova Scotia Power outage map.

The NB Power outage map reported 79,376 customers impacted by unplanned outages, mostly in the western part of the province.

Maritime Electric in P.E.I. reported 2292 customers without power.

CLOSURES

The Confederation Bridge restricted buses, vehicles towing trailers, motorcycles, highside vehicles including trucks, tractor trailers, and recreational vehicles from crossing until the high winds subsided Monday morning.

Bay Ferries announced the ferry crossings from Digby, N.S., to Saint John, N.B., at 4 p.m. Monday and from Saint John to Digby at 8 a.m. Tuesday are cancelled due to the weather forecast. It noted that crossings from Digby at 11 a.m. and from Saint John at 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday could also be disrupted.

The Marine Atlantic terminal in North Sydney is pictured on Dec. 18, 2023.

Trucks were backed up Monday afternoon at the Newfoundland Ferry terminal in North Sydney, N.S.

"There's going to be some cancellations throughout today and tomorrow, potentially into Wednesday," said Darrell Mercer, with Marine Atlantic.

"A lot of commercial goods being shipped to the province right now for grocery stores, for Christmas gifts. Obviously a lot of people traveling to be with their families for the holiday season. So again, there is going to be a bit of a backlog.”

According to Mercer, Marine Atlantic received an updated long-range forecast which shows a potential system coming in that could have impacts Thursday into Friday.

While it's still a few days out, he says it's further evidence of how quickly weather can change.