Strong winds lead to power outages in P.E.I.

Strong winds on P.E.I. led to power outages for residents across the Island — particularly in Prince County.

At its peak, the windstorm had almost 20,000 Maritime Electric customers without power. Around 2:30 p.m. there were about 500 customers remaining without power, but by 4:30 that number had risen to 1,280. 

Maritime Electric said it hopes to have most of the outages restored by midnight, but that work may continue into Wednesday.

The outages were scattered across the Island, and included all of West Prince. Maritime Electric said strong winds knocked down a large tree, which fell across power lines that supplied the area west of Summerside.

Summerside Electric also experienced an outage. The city said power was restored around 2:45 p.m.

• See a full list of cancellations on Storm Centre.
• Call in your closures and cancellations to 1-877-236-9350.

Schools in the Westisle and Three Oaks families closed at 12:30 p.m. A power outage in Montague also shut down the Montague family of schools. West Kent Elementary School closed at 1:30 p.m.

Strong winds on the Northumberland Strait shut down the Confederation Bridge for almost an hour Tuesday morning, but restrictions to high-sided vehicles remain.

The bridge was shut down just before 10 a.m. It was recording wind gusts over 120 km/h.

Environment Canada issued a wind warning for Prince Edward Island Tuesday, which ended around 4 p.m.

Four cruise ships were scheduled in the harbour, with a capacity of close to 6,000 passengers, but all four cancelled due to the weather.

Northumberland Ferries cancelled service for Tuesday.

"We are looking at what is known as a weather bomb," said CBC meteorologist Jay Scotland.

"It's meteorological term that essentially means that the area of low pressure, the storm system, is bombing out, or there's a real rapid drop in pressure."

A cold front moved across the Island overnight, said Scotland, bringing heavy rain that moved from west to east. Winds will switch to out of the west and get stronger as the storm system moves out over the Gulf of St. Lawrence and intensifies.

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With files from Laura Chapin