Wind, rain knock out power to more than 900,000 customers across Quebec
Posted November 1, 2019 10:34 am.
Last Updated November 2, 2019 8:17 am.
MONTREAL — Quebec’s hydro utility says more than 900,000 of its customers are without power following a weather system that brought heavy rain, strong winds and snow across the province.
Strong winds in southern Quebec topped 100 kilometres per hour Friday, knocking out power to more than 340,000 customers from the Montreal area down to the U.S. border.
Other major outages were reported in the Laurentians, where more than 118,000 customers were without power; the Lanaudiere region, with 76,000 outages; and the Quebec City area, with 65,000.
Meantime, authorities in Sherbrooke, Que., said Friday they evacuated 150 homes that were being threatened by the rising water of the St. Francois River in the downtown area.
The river reached a height of roughly seven metres, but security officials said they didn’t expect the water to rise much further.
The Sherbrooke region, south of Montreal, received more than 100 millimetres of rain over the past several hours.
The windstorm left at least one person dead, in Bromont.
Authorities confirmed a 63-year-old man died Friday morning, about 85 kilometres east of Montreal, after a tree fell on him.
