Power back online after fierce storm

Power was being restored to thousands of western Newfoundland customers Monday, after high winds proved too strong Sunday night for crews to do their jobs safely.

More than 5,000 customers on Newfoundland's Northern Peninsulahad lostelectricity during the peak of a tough winter storm.

The power was still out in Norris Point Monday morning because the roof blew off a shed and landed on a power line.

A Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro spokes person said the St. Anthony and Roddickton areas were on diesel generation Monday morning and were in danger of losing power.

Many schools on the Northern Peninsula were closed in the morning, either because of the outages or stormy weather.

There was also a separate outage in the St. Mary's Bay area, Newfoundland Power reported.

High winds were a focal point of Sunday's storm, with the notorious Wreckhouse area blasted with gusts of 170 km/h. In Daniel's Harbour, winds on Sunday night topped 124 km/h.

Marine Atlantic cancelled its daytime crossings on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, at least until wind speeds drop to a safe level.

Meanwhile, stormy conditions were causing problems in Labrador as well. Schools in central Labrador shut down because of blizzard conditions.

Businesses damaged

The stormy weather and high winds Sunday night blew the roofs off two local businesses on the Northern Peninsula.

Pittman's Restaurant in Norris Point, one of the damaged buildings, said the business is seasonal so no one was inside at the time the roof was blown off.

The inside of the building was also damaged from the storm.