Power back after N.S. Christmas storm

Tens of thousands of Nova Scotians are back on the electrical grid as crews worked Tuesday to repair power lines damaged by a major Christmas Day storm in Atlantic Canada.

About 13,000 homes and businesses remained without electricity as of about 8 p.m. local time, the province’s power utility said.

Nova Scotia Power spokesperson Tiffany Chase said about 139,000 affected customers had their power restored by late Tuesday afternoon.

She said more than 700 personnel are working “around the clock” to get the rest of the province back on the grid, including contract crews from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

The utility estimated that 90 per cent of affected customers would see their power back by late Tuesday evening, Chase said, and the remaining isolated outages should be resolved by Wednesday afternoon.

Approximately 158,000 Nova Scotians have been affected by the outages, Chase said, amounting to nearly one-third of the utility’s 507,000 customers throughout the province. The province’s south shore, Dartmouth and Sydney were among the areas most affected, she said.

Chase said as the wind died down, helicopters and vehicles were deployed to survey the damage throughout the province, which included downed trees, snapped power lines and damaged utility poles.

The utility has set up four “comfort centres” in Shelburne, Chester, Kentville and Stellarton where Nova Scotians without power can warm up and charge their devices Tuesday and Wednesday.

The weather agency recorded gusts in excess of 100 km/h throughout much of Nova Scotia, reaching hurricane-force speeds at their peak in some areas, early reports indicated.