Messy weekend weather leaves thousands of Hydro-Québec clients without power

Tens of thousands of Hydro-Québec customers were without power on Monday morning as a result of freezing rain. 

The large majority of those clients were in the Lanaudière and Laurentians, and the utility said areas around Rawdon and Saint-Jérôme were among the hardest hit.

South of Quebec City, the number of outages in the Chaudière-Appalaches region peaked at 17,000 on Monday morning but that number had dropped to only two by 3:30 p.m.

This weekend, Environment Canada issued a freezing rain warning for western, central and parts of southern Quebec. The areas covered by the warning were expected to receive between five and 10 millimetres of ice accumulation.

According to Hydro-Québec, half of the outages in the Lanaudière and Laurentians were caused by tree branches that fell on power lines after being weighed down by the accumulation of freezing rain but added that other outages were due to tripped system breakers. 

As of 11 a.m., about 50,000 clients in those two regions were still without power, down from several hours earlier.

By 4:30 p.m., just over 12,600 remained without power. 

Despite an improvement in the number of affected clients, the utility said it's difficult to say when the power will come back on for everyone. 

"Our teams are making every effort to restore power as quickly as possible," a message on Hydro-Québec's website reads. 

"Given the volume of outages, the estimated restoration times for homes without power in the Lanaudière and Laurentides regions may take a bit longer than usual to be communicated."

A freezing rain warning that was in effect in and around Quebec City and Trois-Rivières on Monday morning had been lifted by 3:30 p.m. Other regions including Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, the Lower St. Lawrence, the Gaspé Peninsula and North Shore areas were still under a weather advisory.

"Our teams will be ready to intervene in the regions where the system could affect our network," said Hydro-Québec spokesperson Caroline Desrosiers.

Freezing rain also hit Ontario this weekend, where 390,000 customers were still without power as of Monday morning. The utility in Ontario said it could be days before it restores power for every affected customer.