N.B. emergency responders deliver warmth, safety during Christmas power outages

Emergency responders in parts of New Brunswick spent Christmas keeping people warm and safe, as power outages lingered for thousands.

To date, there have been no injuries reported from Friday and Saturday’s wind storm. However, a driver inside a tractor trailer was swept off the road on Route 130 because of high winds.

“The driver wasn’t injured, but certainly shaken up,” said Florenceville-Bristol Fire Chief Andrew Cougle, who added the incident happened on a portion of road alongside open field.

An emergency warming centre was established at the Florenceville-Bristol fire hall as outages grew.

The community’s fire department thwarted a potential incident of carbon monoxide poisoning at one residence, thanks an on-site visit and elderly couple’s working detector.

“The power was out, they had their generator on, and it was just the way the generator exhaust… the wind was blowing it,” said Cougle. “It just blew some of it back into the garage area and then that crept into the house.”

Members of the nearby Bath Fire Department have been visiting residents around Carleton County with generators to pump warm air into frigid homes.

“You can heat a house in 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the size,” said Bath Fire Chief Stephen Armour, who woke up to a temperature Christmas morning of around 5°C inside his powerless home.

Armour said one of the biggest challenges in offering heat was residents being reluctant to call for help.

He said many requests came from people calling to suggest heat for the house of a friend or neighbour.

Checking on the vulnerable was a main priority for local responders in the Carleton County, one the last areas of New Brunswick to have all power restored Monday.

“There’s people on oxygen, who have medical conditions, who are in these homes too,” said District of Carleton-North mayor-elect Andrew Harvey. “They’re checking on them and making sure everything is working.”

A peak of about 70,000 NB Power customers were off the grid early Saturday, with about 101,000 customers losing power at some point during the wind storm.

NB Power previously advised some customers they’d remain off the grid Christmas Day. About 6,500 NB Power customers were without electricity Christmas afternoon.

NB Power has called the storm one of the utility’s largest province-wide outage events in the last 25 years.