Thousands remain without power in eastern Ontario, western Quebec following windy Friday

Hydro crews spent Saturday cleaning up and restoring electricity to thousands of customers after strong winds gusted across eastern Ontario on Friday.

Hydro One says high winds cause downed power lines, broken poles and fallen trees on power lines Friday and many customers remained without power overnight. There were approximately 17,500 Hydro One customers without power around eastern Ontario as of 8 a.m. Saturday. 

By noon, Hydro One said it had restored power to more than 188,000 customers across the province. As of 7:30 p.m., Hydro One reported fewer than 4,600 customers in eastern Ontario were still without power.

Estimated restoration times vary but most customers can expect to have power restored by Saturday evening, according to the utility.

As of Saturday at 7 a.m., there was one Hydro Ottawa outage affecting 14 customers near Munster. By 8 a.m., power had been restored in that area. 

Hydro Quebec reported just over 4,500 customers without power in the Outaouais region at around 7 a.m. Saturday. As of 7:30 p.m., there were about 1,700 customers still without power.

The outages cancelled some events across the region, including hockey games in the Eastern Ontario Junior Hockey League and the Central Canada Hockey League.

With files from CTV News Ottawa's Josh Pringle