City officials in Ottawa say it could be another two to three days to restore power, but Hydro Ottawa is assuring the community that progress is being made.
Hydro Ottawa reported more than 60,000 still without power as of 9 a.m. Wednesday. Crews have restored power to 120,000 customers since Saturday night.
"Restoration efforts will continue 24/7 until all residents are reconnected," Hydro Ottawa's Joseph Muglia said in a media conference Tuesday afternoon.
Muglia once again stressed that the amount of damage done to Ottawa's power grid was worse than the 1998 ice storm or the 2018 tornadoes.
"By comparison, 80 hydro poles needed replacing after the tornadoes in 2018. For this event, we are almost three times that amount in damage to poles. This level of infrastructure replacement would commonly require about six months worth of time to complete. We're performing it within a matter of days," he said.
Hydro Ottawa has removed its outage map temporarily, saying it doesn't reflect the current situation and the full extent of crews' progress "due to the number of individual and complex overlapping outages."
"Given the number of separate events and the extent of damage to electrical equipment, this continues to be a multi-day restoration effort," Hydro Ottawa said in a news release. "After critical institutions and emergency services, power restoration work is prioritized to outages affecting large neighbourhoods with the largest number of customers, followed by smaller areas."
Muglia said as soon as Hydro Ottawa is in a position to begin offering estimated restoration times to individual neighbourhoods, it would do so.
Hydro crews from New Brunswick are on the ground helping Ottawa workers. Workers from Toronto and Kingston have also been called in.
As of 5:30 p.m., Hydro One was reporting nearly 49,000 customers in eastern Ontario who were still without power. Hydro Quebec said there were still 21,000 customers in the Outaouais region to be connected.
Approximately 40 roads are still impassable due to downed trees and hydro lines, Public Works General Manager Alain Gonthier told reporters Tuesday afternoon. Residents are being asked to stay off the roads if they can.
OC Transpo is reporting some detoured buses, but the transit system is largely intact.
Respite centres are open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily for people who need electricity, water, food and shelter. You can see a full list here. There are also disposal bins set up at several locations for spoiled food, and the city is conducting a green bin blitz to collect food waste. Many city services were closed on Tuesday.
English public and Catholic schools in Ottawa will reopen Wednesday if they have power. There are more than 60 schools in the city that still don't have power and they will remain closed. In addition, two schools were damaged by the storm and will be closed for an extended period of time. French boards plan to open schools that have power, as well.
Three large towers along Highway 417 were downed during Saturday's storm. The westbound exit to Hunt Club Road is closed and will remain so for the next few days. Hydro One, which supplies the electricity for Ottawa and many parts of Ontario, is working to rebuild the nearly 50-metre tall hydro lines which carry power from Cornwall and across to the Ottawa Valley.
“This is the major extend of our damage on the transmission system. The bulk of the damage is on our distribution system, as it has been for other utilities in the province. So, very, very significant effort to restore power at this point,” says Jason Fitzsimmons, chief corporate affairs and customer care officer for Hydro One. “Importantly, the supply to Ottawa is not dependant on this line right now, but it is one of 14 major lines to feed the city of Ottawa.”
At least nine people across Ontario were killed in the destructive storm on Saturday, including three in the Ottawa area.
Mayor Jim Watson said Tuesday morning the cost of the cleanup will run into the millions of dollars, including the cost of bringing in hundreds of employees in on a long weekend, reimbursing other jurisdictions for their resources and running the respite centres.
"We don't have an estimate at this point," he told CTV Morning Live on Tuesday. "But we're not in the business of penny-pinching during an emergency like this. We have to make sure that we get as many resources as quickly as possible to help people, because their lives have been turned upside-down."
A city council meeting scheduled for Wednesday has been cancelled.
As NATO prepares to embark on the greatest overhaul of the alliance’s deterrence capabilities since the Cold War at a leaders’ summit in Spain, Canada’s role in the new defence strategy remains uncertain.
More than half of all domestic flights from some of Canada's major airports are being cancelled or delayed, recent data has shown.
A Nexus card is supposed to help put low-risk Canadians on the fast track when crossing the U.S. border, but at least 330,000 Canadians aren’t sure when their applications will be processed.
Canada Day celebrations are making a return after two years of scaled-down festivities because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but some Canadians hoping to catch a traditional parade may be out of luck.
Six police officers are in hospital with gunshot wounds and two suspects have been killed following a shooting at a bank in Saanich, B.C., on Tuesday.
Witnesses recount what they saw after police officers engaged in a shooting with armed suspects at a bank in Saanich, B.C., on Tuesday morning. Two suspects are dead and six officers are in hospital with gunshot wounds.
The mastermind of an elaborate Ponzi scheme that cheated hundreds of people of tens of millions of dollars was sentenced Tuesday in a Barrie, Ont., courtroom. Charles Debono has been behind bars since his arrest in 2020 for his role in one of the largest Ponzi schemes in Canadian history.
Tensions were high Wednesday in the western Indian city of Udaipur, a day after police arrested two Muslim men accused of slitting a Hindu tailor's throat and posting a video of it on social media, in a brutal attack representing a dramatic escalation of communal violence in a country riven by deep religious polarization.
Airbnb has codified a global policy that prohibits guests from hosting parties or events on all listed properties.
An RCMP officer who was among 22 people killed in the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting is being remembered today during a regimental memorial service in Halifax.
A scathing letter from an RCMP communications manager released today says RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki referred to direct pressure from the federal public safety minister to release firearm details in the days after the Nova Scotia mass shooting.
The body of an 82-year-old woman who was reported missing from Sainte-Anne-de-Kent, N.B., has been found, according to RCMP in New Brunswick.
Someone in Ontario is waking up $70 million dollars richer.
A mother of three children is speaking out after spending a night on the floor of Toronto Pearson Airport with her young kids and six-month-old baby in a weekend of travel that she says cost her most than $1,000 in unexpected expenses.
A longtime Toronto legislator has been named interim leader of Ontario's New Democrats as the Official Opposition party gears up for a leadership contest.
A coroner's report released Tuesday is calling on Quebec to teach new drivers to open their car doors with their right hand in order to prevent dooring incidents with cyclists.
Canada Day celebrations are making a return after two years of scaled-down festivities because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but some Canadians hoping to catch a traditional parade may be out of luck.
A multi-vehicle collision near Joliette has killed one person and sent several others to hospital.
A mother of three children is speaking out after spending a night on the floor of Toronto Pearson Airport with her young kids and six-month-old baby in a weekend of travel that she says cost her most than $1,000 in unexpected expenses.
More than half of all domestic flights from some of Canada's major airports are being cancelled or delayed, recent data has shown.
On Tuesday, the federal government announced $2.6 million for improvements to taxiways, a runway and lighting at Sudbury's airport.
London fire crews were able to knock down a blaze and save a family dog late Tuesday night.
Two motorcycle riders are facing consequences Wednesday after a collision at a Carlo Road address in Central Elgin, according to police.
Huron County OPP are on scene of a serious single vehicle car crash southwest of Hensall
Two people were taken to hospital in critical condition late Tuesday afternoon after vehicle and scooter collided in St. Boniface.
A new invasive species in Clear Lake has Parks Canada taking steps to prevent damage to the aquatic ecosystem.
A program giving inmates a chance to get an education while serving time in Manitoba’s Stony Mountain Institution is looking to expand, according to the Correctional Service of Canada.
The family of a Black four-year-old who was removed from school by police has filed a lawsuit against the Waterloo Catholic District School Board seeking $1 million in damages for what they says is the board's discrimination and negligence.
Every morning, when Karli Chomick would drop her children Savanna and Ryder off at St. Timothy Catholic Elementary School in Kitchener, she would do the same thing: give them a hug and a kiss, then tell them to be kind.
Ira Needles Boulevard was closed between Highway 7/8 and Highview Drive.
Alberta Finance Minister Jason Nixon says the final number on the 2021-22 fiscal year, which ended on March 31, is a $3.9-billion surplus.
A Toronto couple expressed appreciation and gratitude for the fire fighters who treated and transported their three-year-old daughter to Children's hospital over the weekend.
The Calgary Airport Authority and its partners are preparing for the busiest summer travel season since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Saskatoon police say an investigation is ongoing, amidst a large police presence on Avenue J South between 21st and 22nd street west.
One of the longest-running measures of the pandemic was lifted during Monday's city council meeting.
Prairie Spirt School Division says it will struggle to cover inflationary costs such as gas in the coming school year.
The Supreme Court of Canada struck down a law passed by the former Stephen Harper Conservatives that allows a judge to increase parole ineligibility periods for offenders who commit multiple murders. Now there’s fear it could mean sentence “discounts” for other mass murderers.
Edmonton is moving forward with a plan to improve snow and ice clearing on roads and sidewalks, but it could cost homeowners an extra three per cent in taxes over three years.
One person is dead after a crash north of Redwater on Tuesday.
The premier of British Columbia has announced plans to step down, but will remain on the job until the provincial NDP can choose his successor.
A vigil was held on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside Tuesday for Noelle O'Soup, an Indigenous girl whose body was found there a year after she went missing.
Janette and Michael Chapman died during the fire that devastated Lytton last year. Their grieving son is still looking for answers.
A 36-year-old man was not hurt after he was approached by a man with a knife and robbed of his groceries south of downtown on Monday, the Regina Police Service (RPS) said in a release.
The Government of Saskatchewan is gearing up for a joint COVID-19 booster and influenza vaccination program in the fall.
A new $60 million YWCA Centre for Women and Families was announced in Regina on Tuesday.
