Tens of thousands of New Brunswick residents are still off the grid after a messy mix of freezing rain, ice pellets and strong winds moved through the region Tuesday and Wednesday.
As of 7:30 p.m. Thursday, NB Power was reporting more than 2,200 outages affecting more than 66,000 customers throughout the province, most on the Acadian Peninsula.
More than 130,000 customers were affected by power outages at the height of the storm.
The utility says 271 NB power crews are working to restore power to the majority of customers by the end of Thursday.
Crews are being brought in from outside the province as well, with help coming from Quebec, Maine and Nova Scotia to help deal with the widespread outages.
NB Power says they started with the densely populated areas, and they’re asking all customers to be patient and stay away from downed lines while they work to get them back on the grid.
The outages closed a number of schools in New Brunswick on Wednesday and Thursday, and New Brunswick EMO has opened a number of warming centres across the province.
Amy Mather and her son visited one of those warming centres in Miramichi.
“To keep him warm. He’s sick so I didn’t want him to get any worse,” said Mather.
New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant stopped by to check-in on those using the facility.
“Right now our priority is making sure everybody is safe, everybody knows exactly what they can do to stay safe, and of course, that we get everybody their electricity as quickly as possible,” said Gallant.
The warming centres will be open as long as residents remain without electricity. As power outages stretch into day three, officials expect to see more people coming through the doors.
Nova Scotia also saw a mix of rain, slush and ice pellets, which closed a number of schools Wednesday and made driving hazardous in some parts of the province.
Roughly 12,000 Nova Scotia Power customers were without power at the height of the storm. Most were back on the grid Thursday.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Jonathan MacInnis.
