New Brunswick weather: Storm closes schools, causes power outages

An overnight snowstorm closed some schools in eastern New Brunswick, forced bus delays in other parts of the province and left thousands without power on Friday.

• CBC Storm Centre: The latest storm-related closures and cancellations

Roughly 30,000 NB Power customers were without electricity at the peak of the outages on Friday.

On Friday at 9:30p.m., the number of customers without power haddropped to 5,905.

The majority of those outages were in the Fredericton area, where 4,706people were without electricity.

MeghanGerrish, a spokesperson for NB Power, saidthey expect around 1000 customers will remain without power overnight.

She saidNB Poweris calling all of those customers to let them know.

The Anglophone East School District closed all of its schools because of the poor conditions.

The Francophone South districtclosed schools inMoncton, Dieppe, Shediac,Bouctoucheand Oromocto. The district'sbuses in Fredericton were delayed two hours.

Nine schools in the Fredericton-Oromocto areaclosed for the day at 10:30 because power has not been restored.

Slippery driving conditions

The storm also caused slippery driving conditions on city streets and on provincial highways.

TheRCMPresponded to 48accidentsbetween 5 p.m. on Thursday and 3 a.m. on Friday.

RCMPConst.JullieRogers-Marsh called it a "busy night."

The Fredericton Police, meanwhile, reported about a dozen minor accidents.

The MacKay Highway in the Kennebecasis Valley wasdescribed as a sheet of ice.

The highway wasbacked up in both directions because of incidents of cars off the road.

Mike Walker, the manager of streets and roads in Fredericton, said streets in the capital hadbeen plowed, but was still advising people to drive carefully.

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