A man lost his life Friday, poisoned with carbon while trying to warm up, in Saint-Joseph-du-Lac. In the province, his death is added to that of a sexagenarian, Thursday, crushed by a branch. Two days after the ice storm, Prime Minister François Legault issued a new call for caution, as hundreds of thousands of Quebecers could remain without electricity on Saturday.
The 75-year-old man was found unconscious at his residence in Saint-Joseph-du-Lac. There was “a working generator in the garage,” said Jean-Philippe Labbé, an investigation inspector at the Lac des Deux-Montagnes Police Department. Firefighters estimated that there was “20 times more” carbon dioxide in the air than the norm, he said. The man was found dead at Saint-Eustache hospital.
In Montreal and Laval alone, at least 82 people have been assessed for carbon monoxide poisoning since Wednesday, according to Urgences-santé.
“The generators have to be some distance from the house because it emits gas. You have to be careful with the devices that you come in or that are close to the house,” Prime Minister François Legault pleaded to the media.
He had gone to Coteaux, in Montérégie, where a sixty-something man lost his life while cutting branches on his land on Thursday. A 59-year-old man from eastern Ontario also died after being crushed by a tree branch, Radio-Canada reported, bringing the toll from the storm to three.
Heating or cooking appliances like a barbecue should never be used indoors, authorities have reminded.
“You really, really shouldn’t use this kind of equipment in the home. It can cause very serious health problems,” said Simon Bilodeau, head of emergency measures at the Montreal Regional Public Health Department.
On Friday, Hydro-Quebec was confident of being able to reconnect 800,000 customers by the end of the day, she announced during a press briefing.
In total, more than 600,000 customers have had power since Wednesday, but there were still nearly 311,000 left in the cold and dark around 11 p.m. Friday.
Unfortunately, some customers will not have power until Sunday, maybe even Monday, warned the vice-president, operations and maintenance, at Hydro-Quebec, Régis Tellier.
“[Friday], about 80% of residences will be reconnected, and by [Saturday], it will be 95%,” reassured Premier François Legault.
A total of 1,400 fitters were deployed in the field to continue the operation. Due to the gusts that blew across the province on Friday, Hydro-Quebec was unable to estimate when each household will be reconnected.
“We are very satisfied with the management of the crisis by Hydro-Québec,” said the Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, in a press briefing.
Quebec’s energy network is reliable, he assured once again. Here, it is the vegetation that is in question, and not the network as such, he added. “Hydro-Québec has doubled its investment in vegetation control. That’s the big deal: 40% of failures come from this,” Mr. Fitzgibbon argued.
In telecommunications, the repercussions of power outages are still being felt. Several Internet users reported outages in telephone and Internet services on Friday.
At Videotron, 60% of customers affected by service interruptions due to the ice storm regained their services around 4:30 p.m., the company’s public affairs team said by email.
“The vast majority of service interruptions are due to electrical outages that affect our equipment, but also some wires and structures damaged by the ice. All of this could lead to interruptions of internet, TV, wired and wireless telephony services, “said Videotron.
“Even if power is restored to an area, telecommunications services may still be affected there as they too are dependent on the state of the power grid,” the provider warned.
On the Bell side, more than 1,000 employees are in the affected communities to restore services.
