Power for some in Summerside will stay out until weekend

A small group of customers of Summerside Electric will not be getting their power back until Saturday or Sunday following a windstorm that struck P.E.I. Thursday.

• See a full list of cancellations on Storm Centre.
• Call in your cancellations to 1-877-236-9350.

A storm Thursday brought high winds and wet, heavy snow that devastated power lines and poles. In addition, problems with the underwater cable that connects the grid to New Brunswick cut off the flow of electricity from the mainland.

Tens of thousands of Islanders spent the night without electricity, but Maritime Electric reported that was down to 5,000 at 11 a.m. The outages are scattered across the province.

There are about 25 customers in Summerside without power, and the city's utility says they won't see light until late Saturday or early Sunday. A number of poles came down along Route 2, affecting customers in the St. Eleanors and Sherbrooke neighbourhoods.

Summerside Electric is delivering care packages to these customers with a food certificate to Credit Union Place and a family day pass for pool services and shower facilities.

A persistent storm

Public schools in the province are closed and Holland College has closed down its Georgetown campus.

Maritime Electric spokesperson Kim Griffin said a big problem with the storm is that the wind just kept blowing.

"The storm just really didn't let up for us, yesterday afternoon and into the evening," said Griffin.

"The other thing that happened last night is things weren't holding ... There were things coming down with those winds."

Crews coming from the mainland

Outages peaked at 80,000 for Maritime Electric with all 7,000 Summerside Electric customers out as well.

Crews are coming from Ontario and New Brunswick to help, andGriffin said the work won't be over when power is restored to everyone.

"We're still in major storm recovery mode for us. Cleanup will be well into days and weeks ahead," she said.

Warming centres have been set up throughout the province.

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