(Montreal) Some 21,000 Hydro-Quebec customers are still in the dark. About 95% of homes have regained power since Wednesday’s ice storm, the state-owned utility said Monday morning, stressing that it is now dealing with “some more complex cases.”
Évelyne Paquette, who lives in a duplex in Saint-Laurent, found electricity Monday noon. Hope, therefore, for all those who fear they have been forgotten.
Well aware that “it wasn’t Ukraine”, she says at the outset, Ms. Paquette notes that it was destabilizing not to have electricity for more than five days.
Destabilizing and a little unreal to be deprived of power when outside, the sun is shining, the sky is blue and winter already seems so far behind us.
Her daughter and son-in-law, who live above her with their 14-month-old granddaughter, went to stay with their in-laws, while Ms. Paquette received hospitality from her sister and brother-in-law. Who themselves lacked electricity, but who are very well equipped. “They have a heater and a gas stove, so we were able to cook, shower, be warm…”
Every hour, Ms. Paquette would glance at the Hydro-Quebec map that shows which neighborhoods are still without power. She therefore knew very well that her house was precisely one of the 33 residences in her neighborhood that were still without power.
Chantal and Michel Rheault, who are from Beaconsfield, are still waiting. “Every day we are told that the electricity will come back in the evening, but it does not. »
All their food is to be thrown away, they say, especially worried about their elderly neighbors who, like them, live near the river. “They can’t leave their house, their house is flooded,” says Ms. Rheault.
As of 7 p.m., Hydro-Québec calculated that less than 16,500 Montreal homes are still without power, as are 2,300 customers in Outaouais, 1,500 in Montérégie and 1,300 customers in Laval.
A total of 1.1 million homes have been affected by a power outage since Wednesday.
Hydro-Québec points out that in some places, up to 30 millimeters of ice fell, affecting many trees or large branches that hit the wires.
