OttawaAs of early Monday afternoon, Hydro One was reporting roughly about 57,000 customers without power in eastern Ontario. Most customers in the Tweed area are out.It could take until Wednesday for Bancroft-area power to be fully restoredIce buildup in Kingston, Ont., Saturday. Hydro One is dealing with tens of thousands of power outages after the ice storm. (Daniel Taekema/CBC)Tens of thousands of people people remain without power south and west of Ottawa after a powerful weekend ice storm.As of early Monday afternoon, Hydro One was reporting roughly about 57,000 customers without power in eastern Ontario. Most customers in the Tweed area are out.It could take until Tuesday night to restore power around Tweed and Wednesday night around Bancroft, Hydro One said.Most of the damage was caused by falling tree branches that pulled power lines down to the ground, said Hydro One spokesperson Tiziana Baccega Rosa on Sunday afternoon.”The second wave [of the storm] came through and created additional outages,” Baccega Rosa said. “In addition, there’s access issues … there are trees just littering and blocking roads that are impassable until that is cleaned up.”Organizations such as Emergency Management Ontario have advice on how to manage power outages. CBC Lite is a low-bandwidth version of this website that can help you stay informed.There were more than 100 customers without power under Hydro-Québec and Ottawa and Kingston’s utilities.Potentially troublesome windsEnvironment Canada first started talking about a potential ice storm Tuesday and issued freezing rain warnings across the region Friday. The warnings began to lift at around 11:30 a.m. Sunday, starting with communities along Lake Ontario.The region stretching from Lake Simcoe in southern Ontario to north of Kingston was hit the hardest by the weekend’s wild weather, said Jean-Philippe Bégin, a meteorologist with Environment Canada.”They got about two to three centimetres of ice accretion in those places,” Bégin said Sunday afternoon.Freezing rain fell on Trenton for about 35 hours, according to Environment Canada data.Bégin said temperatures across eastern Ontario are set to warm significantly on Monday — in some places as high as 15 C — before another cold front rolls in.Many of these communities still have special weather statements about winds gusting up to 50 kilometres an hour Monday that could knock down more icy trees or hydro lines.Michael Oulton saw the danger of these ice-laden trees first-hand, rushing outside his home in Kingston to help his neighbour after he was hit by a branch that had buckled under the weight.”I could hear my neighbour scraping his windshield, and all of the sudden [I heard] the big snap,” he said. “I think he’s going to be OK, but it happened in a heartbeat.”Michael Oulton says one of his neighbours was hit by a massive tree branch that snapped Saturday during the ice storm. (Daniel Taekema/CBC)Kingston was one of several eastern Ontario communities to declare a significant weather event during the storm, advising residents to be extra careful and reminding them that road and sidewalk maintenance may take longer than usual.In a news release Sunday, the city said that “multiple power lines” were down and that crews were working hard to clear debris and restore power.Anyone who came across an unattended downed power line should stay back at least 10 metres and call 911 to report it, the city said.Its declaration ended Monday morning.ABOUT THE AUTHORGabrielle is an Ottawa-based journalist with eclectic interests. She’s spoken to video game developers, city councillors, neuroscientists and small business owners alike. Reach out to her for any reason at gabrielle.huston@cbc.ca.Follow Gabrielle on BlueskyFollow Gabrielle on InstagramWith files from Emma Weller, Daniel Taekema, Félix Pilon and Olivier Daoust
Ten of thousands remain without power after eastern Ontario ice storm
