P.E.I. residents prepare for powerless days to come

Alan Dunning, who owns a property of cottages on Prince Edward Island's north shore, knew trees were falling in succession all around him during the brunt of Fiona's force early Saturday.

"I kept hearing the thumps, I kept hearing the trees." said Dunning. "There was nothing I could do. It was a long night, I’ll tell you that."

After weathering Fiona inside one of the cottages, Dunning emerged Saturday morning and quickly lost count of all the fallen trees strewn throughout the grounds.

By then Dunning had already lost power for hours. Then, he lost his wallet. In searching for his wallet, Dunning only found more damage. Communications and cellular connections have also been spotty in the area.

Out of all of Dunning's top priorities nearly a week later, regaining electricity is his most pressing.

"Keeping the phone alive," he said. "I have no fridge so I’m rationing on food."

Dunning, along with several residents of the island’s hard hit area of Stanhope, don’t believe they’ll be reconnected to the grid for several days to come.

"I can't imagine that we're going to have power back in the near future," said Cathy Ryan, who lives on a road with damaged utility lines end-to-end.

"Almost all the trees, the big trees along this whole road are leaning on the power lines and the several poles are snapped and gone. So I think it’s going to be awhile before they can get to that."

By mid-day Friday. Maritime Electric reported just over 36,000 Prince Edward Island customers still without power. Compared to the nearly 80,000 customers who lost electricity directly after Fiona’s arrival.

Maritime Electric said some customers may be waiting until Sunday or Monday to get their power back, with others waiting longer.

To date, the utility has been reluctant to give an estimated restoration time to customers.

"I don’t feel comfortable giving a blanket restoration time, X number of days or weeks out, when we haven’t done our assessments," said Maritime Electric spokeswoman Kim Griffin, at a news conference on Thursday.

Griffin said 50 per cent of customers have been restored, and 100 per cent of distribution lines going into communities had been re-energized.

"That does not mean every customer in your community has power," said Griffin, adding that had been restored to approximately 70 per cent of customers in the west, 55 per cent in Charlottetown, 35 per cent in central areas, and 30 per cent in down-east portions.

The utility’s final tally of downed power poles stands at 504, and nearly 900 broken pole masts have been reported.

"Over the next couple days we will have 197 crews on the island working with us," said Griffin. "The vast majority you will see during the day. It’s the most efficient time for us to work in daylight."

A list of community reception centres (detailing locations for charging ports, food, water, and showers) is available on the provincial government’s website.