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Most P.E.I. residents without power two days after Fiona

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Tens of thousands of Islanders are still without power two days after Fiona battered Prince Edward Island.

At last count, about 75,000 homes and businesses are without electricity. To put that in perspective, there’s only about 160,000 people living on P.E.I.

Ten thousand customers have had power restored since the height of the storm, including 4,500 customers Monday morning. However, the focus remains on critical areas.

“The assessments are still ongoing, and will go into the days, but certainly we’re prioritizing the needs of our critical infrastructure sites,” said Tanya Mullally, PEI Emergency Measures Organization Director. “Such as hospitals, schools, grocery stores, gas stations, to make sure that they’re powered up.”

There are 89 crews in the field. That number is expected to grow to 107 by Wednesday.

According to Maritime Electric spokesperson Kim Griffin, this is the biggest restoration effort in the history of the utility, worse than even Hurricane Juan.

“But the sheer devastation on Prince Edward Island, I’m not sure if others can match that, with all due respect, said Griffin. “I think that the significant amount of damage that we’ve had across the province is the worst storm I’ve ever seen.”

A small silver lining, major infrastructure, like transmission lines and substations, seem to have fared better than in Dorian.

However, there is still no timeline on when regular residential neighbourhoods will see power return.

“The sheer magnitude of the trees that are down on our lines, our crews are sometimes having problems just trying to access the different sites as it is,” said Griffin.

Comfort centres are open across province. The weather is relatively mild, so most people are using the centres to recharge devices and connect to Wi-Fi.

“The top priority right now is getting the lights back on,” said Darlene Compton, P.E.I. Public Safety Minister. “That’s the backbone of when we can make significant progress in getting a province back on its feet.”

Power outages are now the biggest drivers of fuel shortages on the island. Though power was returned to a major fuel depot in Charlottetown Sunday, many gas stations are still without power, so there just aren’t enough places to get fuel.

Along with those power outages come problems with cell service and with data coverage. Maritime Electric says there’s a specific plan to focus on restoring power to cell towers to get cell coverage and data coverage back up as soon as possible.

Cell coverage on the island is still spotty, but there is a noticeable difference from Sunday to Monday.

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