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Some likely to remain without power until Sunday, N.B. Power says

A storm in New Brunswick has brought snow and icy roads to some places, heavy rain to others, and high winds all over. Thousands of N.B. Power customers are without power.

More than 18,000 customers still affected Saturday evening

CBC News ·
Bare trees leaning to the side
Although N.B. is no longer under a wind warning, high winds across the province are reaching gusts over 70 km/h. (Graham Thompson/CBC)

A storm in New Brunswick brought snow and icy roads to some places, heavy rain to others and high winds all over, leaving thousands without power on Saturday.

Environment Canada issued a storm surge warning in the Bay of Chaleur from Miscou Island to Campbellton. The warning said coastal flooding, beach erosion, minor infrastructure damage and coastal road washouts could be expected.

All weather warnings or alerts in the province had been lifted as of 5:30 p.m. AT Saturday.

Waves crash on a rocky shoreline.
New Brunswick has had recent experiences with storm surges, like this one along the Northumberland Strait, during post-tropical storm Fiona. (Ed Hunter/CBC)

According to the N.B. Power outage map, around 18,000 customers were without power as of 5 p.m. AT. Peak outages saw over 71,000 customers lose power. 

Outages have been reported in almost all parts of the province, with Grand Falls, Woodstock and St. Stephen some of the areas more affected. 

N.B. Power spokesperson Marc Belliveau said there are more than 500 crew members working on restoring the outages.

"This is one of the largest provincewide outage events of the last 25 years," he said.

Belliveau added that N.B. Power expects that there will be some customers without power into Christmas Day. 

High wind gusts remained in the forecast for Saturday.

A truck next to a set of traffic lights.
A traffic light was blown off its pole during high winds in Saint John Friday afternoon. (Graham Thompson/CBC)

Flying? Keep an eye on the sky

Fredericton International Airport public relations manager Kate O'Rourke said the airport is always ready for poor weather, but it appeared it would get lucky with just a rainstorm.

Fredericton fared better than Saint John and Moncton, where a few flights were cancelled Friday evening or early on Christmas Eve.

O'Rourke advised people to check their flight status before heading to the airport, since it's possible planes coming from other places in Canada, where the weather is worse, could change plans.

"The air network is a network," said O'Rourke. "Challenges at any airport can create those kind of knock-on effects, whether it's because a traveller is connecting through that airport, or whether the plane's coming from that airport. So definitely, you know, keep your eye on what's happening in the rest of the country."

A woman with a short red bob and a green shirt
Fredericton International Airport public relations manager Kate O'Rourke said people should check their flight status before going to the airport because their plane could be coming from somewhere with bad weather. (Aniekan Etuhube/CBC)

All three of the major airports in the province — Saint John, Fredericton and Moncton — had some flight cancellations. All of the cancelled flights involved planes that were supposed to come from Toronto. 

Confederation Bridge reopened to all vehicles Saturday morning. 

  •  If the power or data on your device is low, get your storm updates on CBC Lite. It's our low-bandwidth, text-only website.

With files from Aniekan Etuhube

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