Thousands of people in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick woke up in the dark on Christmas Day due to ongoing power disruptions caused by severe winter weather.
Since the roads remained inaccessible and the snow continued to fall furiously, the Niagara Region in southern Ontario has remained in a state of emergency.
Meanwhile, Canadian Niagara Power reported “widespread” outages in Fort Erie and Port Colborne, with 14,000 customers in the dark as of Sunday morning and 9,600 in the dark as of 4 p.m.
A statement released early Sunday evening said that while staff were ready for the storm, “blizzard-like conditions” had been hampering restoration operations since Friday night.
Authorities in the Niagara Region have asked locals to avoid using public transportation and roadways. Officials said that all highways in Huron and Perth Counties were blocked due to significant drifting snow and abandoned vehicles.
Around the same time on Sunday night, some 88,000 people in Quebec lost electricity.