Hydro-Quebec rep gives update on ice storm response

Hydro-Quebec rep gives update on ice storm response

Nearly a week after a heavy ice storm hit many areas of southern Quebec, there are nearly 1,000 people in the Pontiac region still in the dark.

As of 3:30 p.m. Tusday (April 11) there were 963 customers without power in MRC Pontiac, mainly concentrated in Clarendon, Thorne, Bristol and Otter Lake. This was a decline of several hundred since this morning.

Though it has the lowest population of MRC’s in the Outaouais, Pontiac represents the vast majority of the 1,100 customers still without power in the region (as of 3:30 p.m. Tuesday).

Earlier this afternoon, CHIP 101.9 spoke with Hydro-Quebec Community relations advisor Caroline Milliard about what the current status of the restoration work in the area looked like.

She said that since their teams are on the move, it’s hard to say how many were in which MRC, but noted that they had 150 teams, or more than 300 workers, in the Outaouais, as well as subcontractors and 18 teams from Ontario.

Milliard emphasized that they prioritize the individual outages with the highest number of customers affected. She said that several rural areas in the Pontiac had a high number of individual outages, each affecting a relatively small number of customers, which meant that they were lower on the priority list.

She added that in the future, more efforts to clear branches and vegetation away from power lines would help in the event of future storms or extreme weather events.

The full interview with Milliard (8m35) is available here.