NS Power Hurricane Fiona Update
NS Power Hurricane Fiona Update
As restoration efforts continue across the province, NS Power recognizes the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. It’s an important day across Canada as we raise awareness and honour the healing journey of residential school survivors.
The damage from Fiona has been extreme with the most significant experienced in the eastern part of the province, including the Eastern Shore, Truro, New Glasgow, Antigonish, Amherst, North Shore and Cape Breton.
While crews continue to work to across the province, more crews are moving east to focus on these areas.
The damage in many of these areas is extensive, making restorations complex. They can require multiple crews and can take several hours to complete. That means there will be customers who will be without power into the weekend and in some areas, into next week.
There are over 1,500 people in the field and hundreds more behind the scenes supporting our customers and crews and additional crews are still arriving in Nova Scotia.
“We’ve all seen images of the extreme damage in some of these hardest hit areas of the province. What isn’t always visible is how multi-layered the work is to repair and rebuild the lines to restore power,” said Matt Drover, NS Power Storm Lead. “We are gaining more access to these areas and appreciate the support from the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of Natural Resources in removing trees and clearing brush so we can get our equipment and materials onsite in order to make repairs to restore power to customers.”
QUICK FACTS:
NORTHEAST (Truro/Pictou/Amherst/Antigonish/Guysborough)
• The most significant damage from Fiona was in the eastern part of the province, including the Eastern Shore, Truro, New Glasgow, Antigonish, Amherst, North Shore and Cape Breton.
• There are over 700 people on the ground in the northeast region including power line technicians, forestry technicians, damage assessors and field support.
• We have set up a satellite Emergency Operations Centre in Truro – a command centre where we will continue to coordinate plans and resources for the Northeast region of the province.
• Together with the Canadian Armed Forces we have set up a staging site in Pictou County to support our restoration efforts. This is where we coordinate and dispatch crews – a one stop shop for materials, fuel and food.
• The Canadian Armed Forces and Department of Natural Resources personnel are in the region helping crews remove trees and brush and running supplies.
• Damage in this region is due primarily to broken poles and downed lines due to falling trees, trees on power lines, and trees on roads limiting access and making travel difficult for our crews.
• About 90,000 customers have been affected in this region. As of this morning (Friday), approximately 64% of customers in the northeast have been restored.
CAPE BRETON
• The most significant damage from Fiona was in the eastern part of the province, including the Northeast region and Cape Breton, particularly Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM).
• There are over 500 people on the ground in Cape Breton including powerline technicians, forestry technicians, damage assessors and field support.
• Together with the Canadian Armed Forces we have set up a staging site in Sydney to support our restoration efforts. This is where we coordinate and dispatch crews – a one stop shop for materials, fuel and food.
• The Canadian Armed Forces and Department of Natural Resources personnel are also on the ground in Cape Breton helping crews remove trees and brush and running supplies.
• We are gaining more access to some of the hardest hit areas.
• Damage in Cape Breton is due primarily to hundreds of broken poles and downed lines due to falling trees, trees on power lines, washed out roads limiting access and making it difficult for our crews to move around.
• There is also a satellite Emergency Operations Centre in Sydney - a command centre where we continue to coordinate plans and resources for Cape Breton.
• More than 65,000 customers have been affected in this region. As of this morning (Friday), approximately 65% of customers in Cape Breton have been restored.
HRM (Halifax/Dartmouth/Sackville/Bedford/Windsor/Musquodoboit/Chester)
• Damage in HRM is due primarily to trees coming into contact with power lines, downed lines due to falling trees and trees on roads limiting and making travel difficult for our crews.
• More than 210,000 customers have been affected in this region. As of this morning (Friday) there are about 2,000 customers to be restored.
• These are more complex restorations that take much longer and require multiple crews.
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About Nova Scotia Power
Nova Scotia Power Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Emera Inc. (TSX-EMA), a diversified energy and services company. Nova Scotia Power provides 95% of the generation, transmission and distribution of electrical power to more than 525,000 residential,
commercial and industrial customers across Nova Scotia. The company is focused on new technologies to enhance customer service and reliability, reduce emissions and add renewable energy. Nova Scotia Power has over 1,700 employees and $4.1 billion
in operating assets. Learn more at www.nspower.ca.
Media Contact:
Jacqueline Foster
NSP Senior Communications Advisor 902-225-4735