Thousands without power in Edmundston area during cold snap
Power for almost 5,000 customers went out around 7 a.m. AT
Around 4,900 residents in the New Brunswick city of Edmundston and the surrounding area were without electricity Tuesday, as the region deal with severe cold.
The outage was impacting N.B. Power customers, as well as clients of Energy Edmundston, the city's homegrown energy department.
"We don't know what happened, and N.B. Power doesn't know, either," said Jacques Doiron, the city's fire chief and emergency measures organization co-ordinator. "We don't know when it's going to come back."
Doiron said the problem is not with the city itself, "but we are affected by [NB Power's] line."
CBC News requested an interview with N.B. Power. Spokesperson Dominique Couture in an email said no one was available, and directed inquiries about when customers would have their power restored to its website.
As of 1 p.m. AT, most of those affected were estimated to be restored by mid-afternoon.
Doiron says the power went out around 7:20 a.m. Tuesday morning. The outage is affecting residents of Edmundston, Lac Baker, Saint-François de Madawaska, Saint-Basile and St-Joseph-De-Madawaska.
Environment Canada listed a wind chill of –33 degrees in Edmundston Tuesday morning, climbing to –24 in the afternoon before dipping down to –36 overnight.
"Because the temperatures are really cold, we had to open up a warming centre for people to come and warm up," said Doiron.
The city-owned Pavillon sportif d'Edmundston, next to the University of Moncton's Edmundston campus, has been opened to allow those without electricity to warm up and charge their devices.
Doiron said the longer the outage goes on, the worse things will get in this cold weather.
"Pipes freezing, that is an issue," said Doiron, but warns that secondary heating systems such as barbecues or generators be kept outside for safety reasons.
"People can get very sick or die," said Doiron.
He asked those without power to turn off their breakers for power-hungry systems like baseboard heaters and large appliances, to ensure that when power is restored it can be rebooted with a lightened load and not risk it going out again immediately. Once the power is back, he said, people can again turn on their breakers.
"That's going to help us re-establish electricity in our region," said Doiron.
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