Increase in episodes of ice : your region will she be affected?

News 28 January, 2018

Photo archives Journal de Montreal
Disaster – ice storm in Quebec
– 10th anniversary

QMI agency

Sunday, 28 January, 2018 19:06

UPDATE
Sunday, 28 January, 2018 19:06

Look at this article

Studies of Hydro-Quebec show that climate change will result in a marked increase in freezing rain events. The State company is already preparing to deal with it.

“The warming is that there are more episodes of ice. Not necessarily episodes of ice like we had in 1998, but the episodes that can be harmful to our distribution network”, explained Marie-Ève Gagné, engineer at Hydro-Québec.

Since the crisis of 1998, the ice storm no longer has a secret for the society for the State. Twenty years later, Hydro-Québec is able to say precisely where are the risk areas in the province.

To get there, a team of meteorologists and engineers have compiled data from Environment Canada and those found on the ground with givromètres.

Chambly: sensitive area

The specialists of Hydro-Québec have thus been able to establish that the area most sensitive to the ice lies in the area of Chambly. Annually, there falls an average of 60 millimetres of ice.

An enlarged area where it falls an average of 55 millimetres also reaches Boucherville. On the island of Montreal, there is talk of 50 mm of ice per year on average.

Outside of the metropolis, a large area where fall nearly 45 millimetres of sleet annually has been identified by the specialists of Hydro-Québec.

Prepare for the worst

Convinced of the risk highlighted by his team of researchers, Hydro-Québec set up of significant quantities of emergency equipment near sensitive areas : large stocks of wires, transformers and everything that can be break down by the presence of ice.

There are even storage sites where you’ll find everything you need for quickly rebuilding of the towers.

“It covers a breakage of about 50 kilometers of line. Thus, it has enough material to rebuild 50 miles,” said Salami Jean Yaacoub, an engineer at Hydro-Québec