Messy weekend weather leaves thousands in Quebec without power

CBC News

· Posted: Mar 31, 2025 8:40 AM EDT | Last Updated: 4 hours ago

Tens of thousands of Hydro-Québec customers were without powerfulness connected Monday greeting arsenic a effect of freezing rain. 

The ample bulk of those clients were successful the Lanaudière and Laurentians, and the inferior said areas astir Rawdon and Saint-Jérôme were among the hardest hit.

South of Quebec City, the fig of outages successful the Chaudière-Appalaches portion peaked at 17,000 connected Monday greeting but that fig had dropped to lone 2 by 3:30 p.m.

This weekend, Environment Canada issued a freezing rainfall informing for western, cardinal and parts of confederate Quebec. The areas covered by the informing were expected to receive betwixt five and 10 millimetres of crystal accumulation.

According to Hydro-Québec, half of the outages successful the Lanaudière and Laurentians were caused by histrion branches that fell connected powerfulness lines aft being weighed down by the accumulation of freezing rainfall but added that different outages were owed to tripped strategy breakers. 

As of 11 a.m., astir 50,000 clients successful those 2 regions were inactive without power, down from respective hours earlier.

By 4:30 p.m., conscionable implicit 12,600 remained without power. 

Despite an betterment successful the fig of affected clients, the inferior said it's hard to accidental erstwhile the powerfulness volition travel backmost connected for everyone. 

"Our teams are making each effort to reconstruct powerfulness arsenic rapidly arsenic possible," a connection connected Hydro-Québec's website reads. 

"Given the measurement of outages, the estimated restoration times for homes without powerfulness successful the Lanaudière and Laurentides regions whitethorn instrumentality a spot longer than accustomed to beryllium communicated."

A freezing rainfall informing that was in effect successful and astir Quebec City and Trois-Rivières on Monday greeting 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 inactive nether a upwind advisory.

"Our teams volition beryllium acceptable to intervene successful the regions wherever the strategy could impact our network," said Hydro-Québec spokesperson Caroline Desrosiers.

Freezing rainfall besides deed Ontario this weekend, wherever 390,000 customers were inactive without powerfulness arsenic of Monday morning. The inferior successful Ontario said it could beryllium days earlier it restores powerfulness for each affected customer.