While much of Canada remains under an extreme cold weather alerts on Saturday, ice storms in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley have left thousands in the dark.

B.C. Hydro says the hardest-hit areas are Abbotsford and Mission where two ice storms ravaged the areas Thursday and Friday, affecting nearly 120,000 customers. As of Saturday afternoon, 26,000 customers were still in the dark.

The icy conditions brought down trees and power lines in the Fraser Valley. Tanya Fish, a spokeswoman for B.C. Hydro, told CTV News Channel that frigid conditions have made it tough to get everyone back on the grid.

“These storms have caused extensive damage to our electrical systems,” she said on Saturday morning. “Trees have actually been coated by a layer of ice, so that additional weight on the branches is actually causing them to break and fall on the power lines.”

“The progress has been unfortunately limited just due to the extremely challenging conditions.”

Fish says crews have been brought in from other regions to work to help with the restoration, although it can be tough to come up with a concrete timeline for when people can expect the power to return.

“We don’t have an estimated time to get all customers back,” said Fish. “We hope to have as many customers as possible back by later on today. Fortunately, the weather conditions here have been improving, so we’re hoping to make some good progress this morning.”

While parts of B.C. are still coping icy conditions and power outages, power has finally been restored to all of the 158,000 customers in Nova Scotia who lost power due to a severe windstorm on Christmas Day.

On Thursday, N.S. Power completed the restoration process when they reconnected electricity to the homes of six residents along the South Shore and to a street in downtown Dartmouth that saw 10 electrical poles knocked down in the storm.

In other areas of the country, extreme cold is causing problems as people try to keep warm.

In northern Alberta, Mackenzie County issued a natural gas shortage warning on Friday in part due to the extreme cold in the area. By Saturday afternoon, both the weather conditions and the gas supply have not improved.

“For everyone using alternate heat sources in their homes and businesses, thank you,” the county said on Facebook. “Your efforts have been essential and we need toy to continue those alternate heat sources.”

Extreme cold warnings have blanketed virtually the entire province of Ontario and Alberta, along with western Quebec, southern Manitoba and southern Saskatchewan.

In the City of Toronto, extreme cold is expected to produce windchill values below -30 overnight into Sunday, and again Sunday night, Environment Canada said. The City of Toronto announced last week that it would provide 400 additional shelter beds for the homeless.

With files from The Canadian Press

Posted by Mackenzie County on Saturday, 30 December 2017