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Atlantic Canada was hit by a deluge Saturday that brought torrents of rain and the situation was compounded Sunday when temperatures dropped creating even more mayhem.
Some Atlantic Canadians are still dealing with the aftermath of a deluge that led to severe flooding, power outages and evacuations in some parts of the region.
Much of the East Coast was doused in heavy rains on Saturday amid unseasonably warm temperatures that melted a significant amount of snow in many parts of the region.
More than 100 people in the small southern New Brunswick community of Musquash were evacuated from their homes due to concerns about the water level at the nearby East Branch dam, according to a spokesperson for the province’s Emergency Measures Organization.
Robert Duguay said 113 residents of Musquash were asked to leave their homes on Saturday night as a precaution because of the high water levels in the dam, which had already receded as of Sunday morning.
Provincial inspected the dam and did not find signs of damage, said Duguay.
“The only concern was the level of water going up,” he said, adding they were reassessing the situation on Sunday to determine when residents could return to their homes.
Some areas of New Brunswick were deluged by more than 100 millimetres of rain since Saturday, causing localized flooding and water levels at the dam to rise to near capacity.
Allie Murchison, disaster management co-ordinator with the Canadian Red Cross, said 87 of the residents were put up in a hotel in Saint John and the rest stayed with family and friends for the night.
Town officials in Sussex advised residents on a few streets to evacuate their homes on Saturday, but Murchison said none of them showed up at a reception centre the Red Cross set up, so volunteers shut it down.
The Red Cross is on standby in Moncton and Saint John, she said.
New Brunswick Power reported that more than 2,600 were affected by power outages in the province Sunday afternoon, down from nearly 10,000 the day before.
In western Newfoundland, crews are working to repair infrastructure damage caused by heavy winds and severe flooding in the region.
Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro said a helicopter spotted a large tree that had knocked out a power line on the Northern Peninsula near Woody Point.
The utility said restoration efforts were delayed because washed-out roads made it difficult to reach the trouble spot, so crews had to remove the tree by hand. But by Sunday afternoon, it said, power had been restored to the surrounding communities.
The province’s Transportation and Works department tweeted on Sunday that crews are working to open a ditch to improve water flow at the site of an “underground hole area” on the Trans-canada Highway near Little Rapids.
The stretch of highway was washed out on Saturday, temporarily cutting off traffic in both directions, but crews have since built a bypass to allow vehicles to go through.
On Sunday afternoon, RCMP said another part of the highway near Millbrook was closed because a bridge had been severely compromised.
And four Newfoundland towns declared states of emergency on Saturday, one of which had since lifted the order.