1 dead, more than 1M without power after Quebec, Ontario ice storm

MONTREAL -

Hydro crews in Quebec worked on Thursday to restore power ahead of the Easter long weekend after a fierce ice storm left more than one million customers in the dark and led to the death of a man who was crushed by a tree.

Freezing rain sent ice-laden tree branches crashing down onto power lines, streets and cars, knocking out power across large areas of southern Quebec, particularly around Montreal and to its south, in the Monteregie region.

Hydro-Quebec said it expected to restore power to between 300,000 and 350,000 clients by the end of the day, and to 70 or 80 per cent of affected customers by midnight Friday. By Thursday at 5:30 p.m., about 887,000 customers were still without electricity from a high of more than one million.

"I can already confirm to you that there will be some, unfortunately, where it will go into the Easter long weekend, possibly Saturday, depending on some areas that are more complex," Regis Tellier, a vice-president of operations and maintenance, told reporters.

Provincial police said a man died Thursday morning when he was crushed by a tree branch. They said the man, in his 60s, was attempting to cut down branches on his property in Les Coteaux, Que., southwest of Montreal.

"He was found under a large tree branch after it fell on top of him. His death was declared at the scene," Sgt. Audrey-Anne Bilodeau said in an interview.

Energy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon said about half the blackouts were in the Montreal region, making restoration efforts less complicated than if the outages were distributed across rural areas.

Still, residential streets across Montreal on Thursday were treacherous, with fallen ice-covered tree branches littering sidewalks and roads and crushing parked cars. Downed power lines were everywhere.

"It's a crisis -- you have to be very sensitive to that; Montreal is currently devastated," Fitzgibbon said in Quebec City.

But he and other officials were quick to remind residents that as bad as conditions were in southern Quebec, they were nothing like during the days following the 1998 ice storm, which left millions in the dark -- sometimes for weeks.

In contrast to 1998, when a series of storms damaged about 1,500 transmission towers along the St. Lawrence Valley, Wednesday's bout of freezing rain left Hydro-Quebec's main distribution network largely intact, Fitzgibbon said. "I think that the concentration of the outages at the level of the circuit breakers, we think that it will be under control very quickly."

Environment Canada says between 20 mm and 25 mm of ice accumulated on trees and buildings on Wednesday in the Montreal area. In 1998, Hydro-Quebec said 78 mm of ice built up across the province's southwest.

Premier Francois Legault visited Hydro-Quebec's offices on Thursday, asking Quebecers to be patient and assuring them the hardship would not stretch on.

"It's not at all like the ice storm of 1998," Legault said. "First, because we're in April and not January -- that means it's not forecasted that there will be three or four days of freezing rain. We're already seeing the temperature improving."

Temperatures in Montreal hit around 7 C Thursday afternoon and were expected to drop to to 1 C overnight. Friday's high was forecast to be around 2 C.

Asked about future storms and the resiliency of the province's power grid, Legault said Hydro-Quebec is working on making the network better able to resist ice and wind storms. He also tried to temper people's expectations that the utility could bury most power lines to protect from extreme weather.

"We're talking about $100 billion," he said of the estimated cost to bury all lines. "We have to be realistic."

Earlier Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited his Montreal riding of Papineau alongside Mayor Valerie Plante.

As ice pellets fell from trees around him, Trudeau told reporters the federal government would offer help if needed, although he said no request for aid had been made. He said seeing all the downed trees and meeting people whose lives will be disrupted during Easter weekend made him emotional.

"Obviously there's never a good time for this, but it's a moment we pull together and try to be there for each other," he said.

Trudeau added that climate change has made extreme weather events such as storms and wildfires more frequent. While it's impossible to connect any one event to climate change, he said, more efforts will be necessary to help cities and provinces adapt.

Wednesday's storm also hit parts of Ontario. Hydro One said more than 114,000 of its customers were without power as of Thursday morning. Hydro Ottawa, meanwhile, said Thursday afternoon about 56,000 customers were without power because of freezing rain conditions.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 6, 2023.