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Published: April 10, 2023
As promised, Hydro-Québec, the public electricity company in the province of Quebec, managed to restore power by the end of yesterday to at least 95% of about 1.1 million subscribers who lost it due to the ice storm that struck the province on Wednesday.
The Vice President of Hydro-Québec for Operations and Maintenance, Régis Thibault, said in a press conference held just before noon yesterday in Montreal that by the end of Monday, electricity would have been restored to "almost all" homes that lost it in Quebec.
Also according to Thibault, his institution restored power to all priority customers, such as long-term care centers (CHSLD). These centers shelter elderly people who are unable to manage their own affairs and need continuous care and supervision due to their health conditions.
At 11:30 pm last night, 44,198 subscribers across Quebec were still without electricity, 29,061 of them in Montreal.
But this morning the number in Quebec decreased to about 38 thousand subscribers, then to about 36 thousand around 10:30 am.
Meanwhile, municipal teams continued cleaning streets, sidewalks, and alleys from trees and branches that fell due to the storm.
Since the beginning of the crisis, the Health Emergencies department (Urgences-santé) of the Quebec Ministry of Health intervened to treat 154 people poisoned by carbon monoxide in the cities of Montreal and Laval, and transferred 126 of them to hospitals for treatment. But none of them are in critical condition, according to the Canadian Press Agency.
Health authorities in Quebec remind residents not to use electric generators or grills inside homes.
Many people resorted to such means to heat their homes, where the temperature dropped due to the lack of heating caused by the power outage, in relatively cold weather for this time of year.
As for the province of Ontario, the western neighbor of Quebec, there were only a few dozen homes without power this morning due to the ice storm.
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