Hydro-Québec Outages Are Still Affecting 130,000+ Customers After That Huge Storm

Over 130,000 Quebec households and businesses were still without power Tuesday morning following a violent storm that ripped through the province over the weekend. The resulting Hydro-Québec outages affected around 550,000 customers in total, many in the Laurentians, Outaouais and Lanaudière regions, the company said.

1,400 Hydro employees were working to restore power to affected areas as of 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, but some customers are in the dark as to when they might get their electricity back.

"Due to difficult access conditions, extensive network damage and the magnitude of the damage to be picked up, it is not possible for us to give a time frame for each location," Hydro said in a Tuesday morning statement.

"At any given time, a field crew may be required to move to another location where an immediate hazard has been reported, or to restore service to a priority location, such as a hospital or other essential utility."

The company also warned some outages "may take a little longer" due to the "large number of targeted interventions" required.

An outage map on the Crown corporation's website shows the extent of outages in the regions north of Montreal.

Hydro-Québec outage map.Hydro-Québec

Of the 133,769 Hydro-Québec customers without power as of 8:31 a.m. Tuesday (the last update at the time of writing), 26,491 were in Outaouais, 33,428 were in Lanaudière, and 72,514 were in the Laurentides.

Hydro is warning Quebec residents to stay away from any fallen wires and call 911 so crews can secure them.