A cell of ice puts pressure on the Hydro-Québec network

Photo Jean-Philippe Daoust

QMI agency

Tuesday, 23 January 2018 19:02

UPDATE
Tuesday, 23 January 2018 19:02

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Nearly 61 500 Hydro-Quebec customers had lost power Tuesday night, on the island of Montreal and the South Shore due to the ice storm.

At around 22 h, a little over 54 600 people were without electricity on the South Shore, in the cities located close to Montréal, including Longueuil, Brossard, Boucherville and localities of the regional county municipality of Roussillon.

Screenshot

On the side of Montréal, the situation was improving. While 14,000 people were without power because of the 19 failures to 20: 30, mainly on the Plateau-Mont-Royal, Côte-des-Neiges, and Verdun, there was only a little more than 6,700 customers without power in 22 h.”A cell of freezing rain unexpectedly has crossed Montreal and the Montérégie region,” said Ouali Fodil, spokesperson at Hydro-Québec.

This freezing rain, which has added to that fell throughout the day Tuesday, weighed down tree branches that went bump into electrical wires, making it down to the circuits.

“We can’t deliver the current at a distance when there is ice. It is necessary to send teams to patrol,” explained Mr. Folid. The workers need to get to the places fault where, if necessary, they cut off the branches before reconnecting the circuit breakers.

“This is classic when we had the ice storm”, he added.

We do our best to inform you. When there are a large number of failures, it is sometimes difficult to confirm a time of recovery. But we believe that a majority of customers will be reconnected in the evening or at night. Thank you for your understanding.

— Hydro-Québec (@hydroquebec) January 24, 2018

The majority of failures, excluding those where wires or transformers were damaged by falling branches, had to be repaired by the end of the evening, said the spokesman, without being able to give any average time until the repairs are completed.