Some rural eastern Ontario residents could still be without power for weeks

It could be days, if not weeks longer before some customers in rural eastern Ontario could see their power restored, according to Hydro One.

As Hydro Ottawa reports just 300 customers still without power Wednesday evening, about 5,900 Hydro One customers were still offline as of Thursday morning, according to the company's website.

"The severity of damage" from the May 21 storm means some customers in the Bancroft region will be without power for several more days, according to the site.

In the Tweed area "a small number of customers may be without power for several more weeks." Both areas are in Hastings County, west of Kingston, Ont.

Thousands of households in the area have already been without power for nearly two weeks. CBC is keeping track of how long some people have been without power.

The estimate from Hydro One doesn't surprise Carl Stefanski, the mayor of Limerick Township in Hastings County.

Hydro crews are trying to access remote areas with several homes only accessible by a single road or by water, and there's been extreme damage, he said.

"It looked in some areas that a logging operation had taken place. The trees were completely levelled, laying down on the ground. You could see for a mile away. That was very sad. There was a lot of damage here," said Stefanski.

Stefanski estimates "it'll take over two months to put this township back together."

The municipality has also been dealing with "gawkers," he said, which are non-residents in the area coming to look at the damage. 

"Hydro has to dismantle what they're doing, pull over on the shoulder, let these cars go by. So we have a lot of people that are upset because we mandated that the roads should be closed."

Hydro One dealing with 'extraordinary' damage

In Bancroft, most of the ongoing outages are also on the outskirts of the municipality, according to Mayor Paul Jenkins. The homes affected are typically seasonal homes, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic more property owners have been living there year-round.

Over the last few weeks, "it's just unbelievable to see the number of vehicles and the number of the amount of assistance that has come to the area," Jenkins said.

He said there has been frustration over Hydro One's restoration projections, which some homeowners call unreliable.

"Some of the estimates, you know, they can't keep, but all in all they've done an unbelievable job in getting it back as quickly as possible," said Jenkins.

"I think it's just been a matter of, you know, grand and major disruption and inconvenience for a lot of people."

Hydro One declined an interview, but in an emailed statement it called the level of damage in that area "extraordinary" and hydro crews "said it was easier to 'count the number of poles left standing than those on the ground' as they completed helicopter patrols." 

In some instances, crews have needed to rebuild entire sections of power lines "in challenging terrain," which includes drilling through rock to install new poles, the company said.

"We understand how difficult it is to be without power and we are doing everything we can to restore power as quickly and as safely as possible," its website tells its customers.