Lee leaves Nova Scotia to clean up fallen trees, downed power lines
Lee started its trip across Nova Scotia in the darkness of Saturday morning, and by daylight thousands of Nova Scotia Power customers were without electricity as the powerful storm moved across the province.
By afternoon more than 160,000 customers were without power. The total number ebbed and flowed through the day as outages stretched across the province, from Yarmouth to Cape Breton. By late Sunday afternoon the number of customers waiting for power dropped to just over 45,000.
Lee was offically a post-tropical storm as of Saturday afternoon, but still had maximum sustained winds of 120 kilometres per hour, the equivalent of a weak Category 1 hurricane, SaltWire Network’s Allister Aalders said.
Many coastal roads had been rendered impassable by the storm surge pushing rocks and debris onto the pavement. Highway 207 was closed from MacDonald House at Lawrencetown Beach to Leslie Road because of flooding.
A tree fell across Highway 10, blocking traffic between Annapolis and Lunenburg counties for a time.
Trees on lines
Fire departments across the province had been responding to calls of trees on power lines. More reports came in of many trees down in Shelburne County, part of the coastal areas where storm surges and the heaviest winds were expected.
The western part of the province (South Shore, Tri-County and Annapolis Valley), the metro Halifax area as well as Truro and New Glasgow in the northeast were hardest hit by the storm, Nova Scotia Power said.
Winds reached over 100 km/h in m,ost of the west and the northeast area of the province and over 120 km/h in parts of Halifax Regional Municipality.
In Halifax, downed trees and power outages closed all municipal parks and most municipal recreation facilities.
Parts of Nova Scotia were dealing with deteriorating cell service. A spokesperson for Bell said at the height of the storm nearly 20 cell towers between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick lost power. Two remained down late Sunday afternoon.
“Teams are now assessing damage to our distribution network – poles, cables and antennaes — which deliver our services to customers’ homes and businesses,” said the spokesperson. “Once power is restored and we are granted safe access to sites, crews will begin repairs.”
Yarmouth had been bracing for a direct hit from Lee but it was largely spared.
Yarmouth Mayor Pam Mood said mid-Saturday afternoon the town was relieved to see so little damage and no flooding.
“I’m thrilled with how things are going,” Mood said, adding the town was pleased to see how people had prepared for Lee.
Closed for business
Most businesses in southwestern Nova Scotia had remained closed on Saturday, which cut down on the amount of traffic.
While people were urged by officials not to venture to shorelines, many still did out of curiosity. At False Harbour Beach in Cape Forchu, Yarmouth County, for instance, hight waves and surf drew curious onlookers.
Across the Maritimes, Nova Scotia Power said more than 800 people were working to restore power in affected communities. That included power crews from Ontario.
Helicopters and drones were being used to patrol lines and crews will also be doing foot patrols.
About 277,000 customers were affected by the significant winds causing trees to come down on powerline, Nova Scotia Power said of Lee.
The company said it was able to restore power to approximately 170,000 customers and expected to get many more back on Sunday.
“As wind gusts went below 80 km/h, crews were able to go up in buckets and restore power, however, there’s no question Lee was a major storm that created unsafe conditions that slowed restoration efforts,” Matt Drover, Nova Scortia Power storm lead, said in a news release.
With files from Ian Fairclough and Tina Comeau
