Fortis is working feverishly to restore service after tens of thousands of people in Prince Edward Island were left in the dark following Dorian. Trees toppled onto power lines, leaving about 65,000 people in the dark at one point on the weekend.
Fortis, the parent company of Newfoundland Power, is the regulated provider of electricity in PEI.
Executive vice-president Gary Smith says they got a helicopter in the air first thing Sunday morning to survey the damage.
Our helicopter has landed after completing assessments of our system again today and locating trees on lines. We continue to find more fallen trees across PEI. Crews are working on making repairs and restoring power. Some customers may be without power until the end of the week. pic.twitter.com/kUO8mQe04f
— Maritime Electric (@MECLPEI) September 9, 2019
As of this morning, there are under 20,000 customers off the grid and Fortis expects to restore service to them by Friday.
They have had to bring crews in from elsewhere, including Newfoundland, to help out in PEI.
(Map from Maritime Power showing outages across PEI as of Tuesday afternoon.)
He says they have had good luck in repairing the damage with crews from Newfoundland Power and Ontario pitching in.
Meanwhile, Canadian soldiers armed with chainsaws are fanning out across the Halifax area to help clean up the mess left behind by post-tropical storm Dorian. Tens of thousands of people in Nova Scotia remain without power.
As of 7 am we have 63 crews working across PEI to restore power, including crews from @NFPower and Fortis Ontario. There are currently approx. 18,000 customers without power. Restoration work is slow-going with many downed trees and trees on lines. pic.twitter.com/SI0jLocFVJ
— Maritime Electric (@MECLPEI) September 10, 2019
