As temperatures plunged from freezing to brutally frigid on Tuesday morning, many Montrealers woke up to find their homes without power.
On January 21, Hydro-Québec reported that a significant outage started around 6:25 a.m., impacting much of the city. As many as 50,000 were initially affected. As of 9:00 a.m., around 35,000 homes out of a total of 1,036,980 remained without electricity.
The hardest-hit areas are in the northern part of the island, including the boroughs of Ahuntsic-Cartierville and Villeray–Saint–Michel–Parc–Extension.
This comes as a polar vortex grips much of North America, with Montreal's temperatures dropping to a frigid -15 C on Tuesday morning.
The ongoing outage is reportedly caused by equipment damage linked to a manufacturing defect, according to Hydro-Québec's Info-Pannes page. Unfortunately, no timeline has been provided for when power will be restored.
With the bitter cold posing additional challenges, Hydro-Québec has postponed all planned maintenance outages for January 21 and 22, focusing only on essential and brief interruptions.
Tuesday is expected to see lows of -18 C with temperatures gradually climbing up throughout the rest of the week.
In the meantime, people affected should stay as warm as possible, and be sure to check Hydro-Québec's website for updates as more information becomes available.
This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.
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