Comfort centre opens in Region of Queens Municipality amid outages

A comfort centre has been opened at a fire department in the Region Of Queens Municipality as the area deals with ongoing power outages due to wet and windy weather.

The centre opened Wednesday morning at the North Queens Fire Association Hall in Caledonia.

Residents can get beverages and snacks and can use the centre to charge their electronic devices.

Heather Cook, the public information officer for the region’s Emergency Management Organization, said outages have been affecting areas including Caledonia and LaBelle since Monday evening.

“Now that the storm has subsided for the most part, it’s nice to be able to get out,” she said.

Chris Wolfe, the chief of the North Queens Fire Department, echoed the sentiment and said some of the more remote communities in the region suffered “quite a bit of damage to the power lines.”

He said so far, the plan is to open the comfort centre on Thursday as well.

“We’ll stay open until everybody has their power restored,” he said.

As of 6 p.m. on Wednesday, just over 2,350 customers were without power across the province, according to the Nova Scotia Power outage map.