More than 20,000 NSP customers without power Tuesday morning

More than 20,000 Nova Scotia Power customers were still without electricity Tuesday morning.

The company said in a news release that crews were continuing to work to restore service to customers left powerless by the significant winds, nearing 100 kilometres an hour in some areas, that swept across the province Monday afternoon and into the evening.

The high winds knocked down trees and branches on power lines and, in some cases, brought down wires and broke power poles, the company release advised.

“High winds can also cause damage to meter masts on customers’ homes,” said Matt Drover, Nova Scotia Power’s storm team lead.

Crews worked through the night making repairs and restoring power for customers impacted by the storm that hit the province yesterday with long durations of significant high winds. More than 100,000 customers lost service due to the storm, and close to 80,000 have had their power… pic.twitter.com/6cnTGH3iYJ

— Nova Scotia Power (@nspowerinc) December 12, 2023

“If this happens, customers will need to get a certified electrician to make repairs before Nova Scotia Power can safely restore their power.” 

At the height of the storm, about 100,000 customers had lost power but the company reported that by 10 a.m. Tuesday crews had restored service to 78,000 of them.

The Stellarton, Truro and Bridgewater areas were experiencing the most outages as of Tuesday morning, each reporting more than 3,000 customers without power, according to the NSP outage map. 

The Stellarton area of Pictou County was the hardest hit, showing 7,335 customers without service. 

Aside from the top-speed winds, other areas in the northeast part of the province, Annapolis Valley and the Halifax Stanfield International Airport saw wind gusts approaching 80 km/h last as long as six hours, making it unsafe for crews to go up in buckets to restore power until winds slowed down. 

The company said 500 employees, including power line technicians, damage assessors and forestry workers, were in the field working to restore power to customers on Tuesday. 

As work continues on the ground, a helicopter will also be used Tuesday to inspect transmission lines to help identify damage. 

“Our team has been doing proactive upgrades and maintenance throughout the year, including more tree trimming and replacing poles with stronger, more resilient ones,” Drover said.

“This helps prepare the system for high winds and extreme weather.”

Drover said the storm is a reminder of how important that work is and why NSP continues to invest more in its tree-trimming program.

Customers are encouraged to keep an eye on outagemap.nspower.ca for the latest information and estimated restoration times. 

Nova Scotia Power acknowledged that the province is seeing more extreme weather events more often, including high winds in excess of  80 km/h that can cause branches and trees to break and come into contact with the power system, causing outages. The average number of hours of sustained wind gusts over 80 km/h over the last five years is up 54 per cent from the previous five-year period.

The company reminds people not to try to move downed wires they might encounter but instead to call the company immediately at 1-877-428-6004.