NB Power says some customers who lost power during a mid-week storm may not get it back until some time on Friday.
Around 10,000 customers were still without electricity as of 9 p.m. Thursday. That was down from a peak of around 55,000 earlier in the day.
“While we are making every effort to restore power safely and efficiently, we encourage customers to be prepared for outages that may last into tomorrow,” NB Power said in a social media post late Thursday afternoon.
Outages are scattered throughout the province, according to the utility’s website, with most in the central and southwestern regions.
- Carleton: 89 customers; 15 outages
- Central York/Sunbury: 2,523 customers; 108 outages
- Charlotte/Southwest: 1,299 customers; 44 outages
- Kennebecasis Valley/Fundy: 5,258 customers; 112 outages
- Kent: 23 customers; 3 outages
- Kings/Queens: 604 customers; 42 outages
- Northumberland/Miramichi: 457 customers; 6 outages
- Sackville/Port Elgin: 1 customer; 1 outage
- Victoria/Madawaska: 68 customers; 19 outages
About 650 people are actively supporting restoration efforts across the province, NB Power said earlier in the day on Thursday.
“In certain areas, crews must wait for winds to subside before beginning necessary repairs. We anticipate more outages will be reported as this weather event progresses,” it said.
Meanwhile, Saint John Energy reported a pair of outages as a result of the high winds. They have since been restored.
Wind damage
The Fredericton International Airport reported a peak wind gust of 109 kilometres per hour, according to Environment Canada, while the Saint John Airport had a gust of 92 kilometres per hour.
Wind gusts reached 78 kilometres per hour in St. Stephen, 77 kilometres per hour in Sussex and 69 kilometres per hour at the Greater Moncton International Airport.
Damage is being reported in many communities across southern New Brunswick as a result of the high winds.
In St. Stephen, there is damage to the exterior of the provincial building on Milltown Boulevard.
As well, several bricks have come off the facade of a building next to McVay’s Barbering Stylist on King Street.
Meanwhile, part of a wood-frame building under construction in the Palmer Brook Road area of Quispamsis was toppled.
Temperature records set
The intense low-pressure system also brought unusually warm weather to New Brunswick, breaking several daily temperature records on Wednesday.
Saint John reached a high of 15.1°C, tbreaking the old record of 14.6°C set on this date last year.
The high of 16.1°C in St. Stephen broke the record of 14.4°C set back in 1966.
Woodstock recorded a high of 14.7°C, which broke the previous record of 12.9°C set in 2021.
Travel delays
All river ferries throughout southern New Brunswick were out of service at one point Thursday morning due to weather conditions but are now back in action.
Bay Ferries cancelled most of Thursday’s crossings between Saint John and Digby, N.S. The 5:30 p.m. crossing from Digby did go ahead as planned.
School closures due to power outages
- Apohaqui Elementary School
- Fairvale Elementary School
- Fundy Shores School
- Harry Miller Middle School
- Hammond River Valley Elementary
- Inglewood Elementary School
- Norton Elementary School
- Petitcodiac Regional School
- Quispamsis Elementary School
- Riverside Consolidated School
- Rothesay Elementary School
- Rothesay High School
- Rothesay Park School
- St. Stephen High School
- Sussex Elementary School
- Westfield Elementary School
