Warming stations have been set up across New Brunswick as high winds wreak havoc with trees and power lines and freezing rain coats power poles with a thick layer of ice.
Scoudouc resident Jon Allen Edwards and his wife took refuge at a warming station in Shediac on Tuesday. Edwards also voiced his concerns about the storm response to Premier David Alward, who was touring the area.
“In Scoudouc, N.B. today, this morning, those people are effectively cut off from Shediac and this warming centre,” said Edwards.
“There are a great deal of seniors living in that area right now who cannot drive these roads in order to even get here.”
Alward said he is confident emergency organizations are doing their best to deal with the storm.
“There are local organizations again that are on the ground reaching out to people and as a whole, I believe it’s done very effectively,” said Alward.
An emergency meeting at the Shediac Fire Department mapped out a strategy for dealing with the storm and the nearly 5,000 people who are without power in the community.
“Firefighters are going to go knocking at the apartment buildings to make sure everybody is well taken care of,” says Shediac Mayor Jacques LeBlanc.
Fire officials are asking residents to be careful when heating their homes, as devices like propane heaters and generators can be dangerous if they’re not properly used.
“Sometimes they use generators and they don’t ventilate the generators properly and that causes carbon monoxide,” says Shediac Fire Chief Ronald LeBlanc.
At its peak, 50,000 New Brunswickers were without power. That number was down to 16,000 Tuesday afternoon.
NB Power estimates some residents will be left in the dark until the weekend.
P.E.I. residents urged to stay off roads
Police in Prince Edward Island are warning motorists to stay off roads as blowing snow and freezing rain pound the province.
Schools were cancelled for the fifth consecutive day and one longtime resident says it’s the most snow he has seen in close to 30 years.
“This would be like maybe in the mid-1980s, something like that, for the snow catching up on the roads,” says Kevin Hunter, who lives in Kensington.
The wild weather cancelled schools across the island for the fifth consecutive day and snowplows were pulled off roads for a while due to poor visibility.
RCMP issued several warnings related to road conditions Tuesday, eventually urging motorists to stay off roads altogether.
Milton Station resident Lucas Vanderaa became stuck while trying to enter his driveway.
“I was just turning in to get into the driveway and trying to get off the highway,” says Vanderaa.
Thousands of Maritime Electric customers were in the dark Tuesday and the utility is still working to restore power in some areas. At one point, the utility pulled its power crews off roads for several hours due to deteriorating road conditions.
“It certainly slowed us down,” says Maritime Electric spokesperson Kim Griffin. “Jobs that should take an hour or two hours are taking 10 and 12 hours due to the terrible weather conditions on Prince Edward Island.”
With files from CTV Atlantic's Jonathan MacInnis and David Bell
