More than 500 crews are on the ground working to restore power to tens of thousands of New Brunswickers.
But the province’s largest electric utility said some could remain without electricity until later next week.
NB Power reported 12,240 homes and businesses without power as of 9 p.m. Saturday, with more than 603 separate outages across the province.
That is down from more than 70,000 customers affected at the peak of the outages, according to the utility. More than 100,000 customers have lost their power at some point since the storm began.
“This is one of the largest province-wide outage events of the last 25 years,” spokesperson Marc Belliveau said in an email late Saturday morning.
“We realize that being out of power is always difficult, but moreso during the holiday season when families and friends get together.”
Western New Brunswick is experiencing the bulk of the outages. There are 3,700 customers affected in Carleton and 2,800 in Victoria/Madawaska.
Below is a break down of the number of affected customers by region throughout the rest of the province:
- Acadian Peninsula: 1,641 customers, 102 outages
- Kennebecasis Valley/Fundy: 1,459 customers, 39 outages
- Charlotte/Southwest: 949 customers, 62 outages
- Kent: 942 customers, 74 outages
- Chaleur: 363 customers, 33 outages
- Kings/Queens: 260 customers, 33 outages
- Northumberland/Miramichi: 33 customers, 17 outages
- Central York/Sunbury: 14 customers, 1 outage
- Shediac/Cap-Pelé: 11 customers, 4 outages
- Moncton/Riverview/Dieppe: 5 customers, 1 outage
The estimated time of restoration (ETR) is late Friday evening for some outages, while others do not yet have an estimated restoration time.
“In the areas of greatest impact, the ETR is set for the entire community,” the utility said in a tweet Saturday evening.
Saint John Energy reported one outage on Friday evening but it has since been restored. There are currently no customers without electricity.
Meanwhile, there are more than 11,000 customers without power in Nova Scotia and more than 2,200 in Prince Edward Island.
Wind gusts surpass 90 km/h
Miscou Island recorded the highest wind gust in New Brunswick at 98 kilometres per hour, according to Environment Canada.
Several other communities also recorded gusts in excess of 90 kilometres per hour, including Miramichi, Bathurst, Charlo, Moncton and Red Pines.
Wind gusts reached 83 kilometres per hour in Sussex, 80 kilometres per hour in Saint John, 76 kilometres per hour in Fredericton and 74 kilometres per hour in St. Stephen.
High winds forced a full closure of the Confederation Bridge between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island around 6 p.m. Friday as winds gusted to 140 kilometres per hour. It has since reopened to all traffic.
The most rain fell in Mechanic Settlement, near Fundy National Park, which received 54 millimetres. St. Stephen picked up 51 millimetres of rain while Saint John saw around 27 millimetres.
Wind, rainfall, storm surge warnings end
Wind warnings that were in place for all of New Brunswick ended early Saturday, along with the rainfall warning for central, southern and eastern regions of the province.
A storm surge warning remained in effect for much of the day for the Bay of Chaleur from Miscou Island to Campbellton but has also since ended.
While the worst of the storm is now behind us, rapidly falling temperatures could lead to icy conditions in areas where there was any standing water.
Parts of New Brunswick will also see flurries throughout the day Saturday and into Saturday night. Up to 10 centimetres could fall in Saint John, the Kennebecasis Valley, Sussex, and southeastern New Brunswick.
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