Tens of thousands still without power in Atlantic Canada one week after Fiona

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Every part of Parry Aftab’s day involves intensive problem-solving after more than a week without power or running water in her Prince Edward Island community that was devastated by post-tropical storm Fiona.

She’s had to figure out how to wash her clothes, flush her toilets and make a meal that is more interesting than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And she hasn’t even considered taking a shower.

Three days ago, Ms. Aftab, 71, and her husband managed to get their hands on a small generator, but it costs $100 a day in gasoline to run, and most nearby gas stations can’t pump fuel without electricity. At night, she needs the generator to operate her medical device for sleep apnea. But the generator stops after five hours, so she wakes up in the middle of the night to restart it.

“Nobody knows how long it’ll take to get power restored,” said Ms. Aftab, who lives in Point Prim on the island’s south coast. “You sit there, and you’re so happy for friends as they get power restored, and you just think: How much longer?”

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Nothing comes easily for the tens of thousands of Maritime households that are still without power more than a week after Fiona slammed into Atlantic Canada, wreaking havoc on infrastructure and sending entire homes into the sea.

PEI’s Maritime Electric said 94 per cent of households in the province had their power knocked out at the height of the storm, equating to roughly 80,000 customers. As of Sunday evening, there were still about 22,000 PEI customers without power. In Nova Scotia, 27,000 customers remained without power from a peak of more than 400,000.

Utilities in both provinces said they hope to have the majority of remaining outages fixed in the next couple of days, but a timeline is yet to be established for thousands of homes in more remote areas. Meanwhile, utility companies in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Quebec no longer had any hurricane-related outage reported online.

Lia MacDonald, Nova Scotia Power’s storm lead for the province’s northeastern region, said much of the remaining outages are in her region and Cape Breton, where hundreds of electric poles are so damaged that they have to be replaced.

In many areas, large uprooted trees are impeding repair crews – some are so large that they can only be lifted with cranes.

“What we’re seeing is unprecedented damage,” said Ms. MacDonald, who added that the challenges from the outages are affecting their own staff in terms of accommodating workers at hotels and figuring out how to feed them.

“We understand and feel how hard this is for our customers. ... We’re laser-focused on getting everything restored as safely and quickly as we can.”

Maritime Electric spokesperson Kim Griffin said many homes will need to have individual hardware replaced and will require help from electricians, who were already in short supply before Fiona.

“I’ve never seen such destruction,” said Ms. Griffin, who grew up on PEI and has worked for the utility for 15 years.

“There’ll be a number of individual outages at least in the thousands that are one-by-one, crew-by-crew and very labour intensive.”

In the meantime, the losses have piled up for residents who are still without power.

Ms. Aftab said she has several fridges and freezers that were full of food, including four turkeys and four hams for a large Thanksgiving dinner she was planning to hold for 60 people, but they all went bad when she lost power. All in all, she lost roughly $3,000 worth of food.

She also lost four months of diabetes shots that were worth more than $3,000. She can only heat water on the barbecue, so all of her cookware is slowly being destroyed.

The bright side, however, is the way that community members have rallied around each other, Ms. Aftab said.

Any posts on her local Facebook groups are followed up by neighbours immediately showing up at her door with help.

On the weekend, when she asked online how to go about washing dishes without running water, someone turned up at her door with extra water. Others with generators have offered their washing and drying machines, or brought the couple hot soup and tea in a thermos.

Ms. Aftab, who is originally from the United States and recently moved to PEI, said the hospitality has blown her away.

“It’s the kind of stuff you see on television or read about in feel-good articles,” said Ms. Aftab. “People on the whole island have been amazing. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”