Dorian’s wake
Devastating storm leaves hydro utility with largest outage in its history
Nova Scotia reeling from widespread power outage,
HALIFAX —
Dorian may not have hit Nova Scotia with the same punch as Hurricane Juan, but due to the storm’s “widespread” impact across the province the power utility is facing their largest restoration challenge ever.
The former hurricane barrelled into the Atlantic region on Saturday as a post-tropical storm with winds reaching between 120 and 150 kilometres an hour, and rain in the 100- to 200-millimetre range, according to the Canadian Hurricane Centre.
Bob Robichaud, Environment Canada meteorologist, said in a media update Sunday that although the winds did reach hurricane level throughout the city, the area of strongest winds in the southern part of the storm system did not quite reach Halifax.
For Dorian, the impacts are “all over the Maritimes,” ranging into southeastern New Brunswick and one end of Nova Scotia to the other, Robichaud said, but its “peak intensity” wasn’t quite as high as Hurricane Juan’s.
Karen Hutt, CEO of Nova Scotia Power (NSP), also spoke with reporters on Sunday alongside various organizations like Halifax police, HRM’s Emergency Management division, military, and the province’s Emergency Management Office (EMO).
Hutt said at the peak of Dorian, there were 400,000 people without power in Nova Scotia, but that number had gone down to 360,000 by Sunday just before noon once crews were able to begin work after 6 a.m. Restoration estimation times varied on the NSP outage map, ranging from 11 p.m. Sunday to the same time Monday or Tuesday.
“This is an exercise of days, not hours, in restoring power. It’s just not feasibly possible to do it that quickly,” Hutt said.
Residents will continue seeing power trucks and crews working in “virtually” every community around the province, Hutt said, adding that Dorian has led to the largest mobilization of resources in their company’s history with1,000 people on the ground including crews from Maine and Florida. Premier Stephen McNeil called into the media update over the phone, and although he has criticized NSP in the past around power outages said that it’s clear the utility “has learned from previous storms.”
McNeil added that co-operation before and after this storm between NSP, the province and all other partners has been “unprecedented.”
Military members were also called into Nova Scotia on Sunday to help with cleanup efforts. Rear Admiral Craig Baines, commander of Joint Task Force Atlantic, said 300 people (mostly from Gagetown, N.B.) were to begin work Sunday afternoon in the Halifax region. He added that 200 more HRM members could be mobilized if needed, as well as another 200 back in New Brunswick.
Large trees were seen uprooted throughout the Halifax region on Sunday, cracking sidewalks or pulling down power lines. In a video shared on social media, a tall crane at a South Park St. work site toppled over during the storm on Saturday, falling several stories to the pavement below.
Police kept the area blocked off throughout Sunday as plans were made on how to remove the crane, Chief Dan Kinsella said. The province’s labour department has opened an investigation around how and why the crane collapsed, he said.