Thousands of residents are without electricity after a powerful thunderstorm swept across parts of the Pontiac on Thursday evening (July 24), bringing with it a downpour and strong winds.
The municipalities of Pontiac, Bristol, Clarendon, Portage du Fort and Shawville were hardest hit, with around 5,000 homes without power immediately following the storm, and some 21,000 across the Outaouais.
On Friday at noon, Hydro-Québec [HQ] said 3,000 homes were still disconnected from the power grid in the Pontiac, thanks to many downed trees and power lines across the region.
Hydro-Québec’s [HQ] website is predicting power will be restored to most residents by 5 p.m. Friday.
Shawville mayor Bill McCleary said Hydro-Québec restored power to the Pontiac Hospital just after midnight on Friday, and that the town’s emergency generator is powering the town’s well and water tower, but not its springs.
“The springs are the town’s main drinking water source, and we use the well when the springs can’t keep up, so now we’re just on the well,” he said, adding residents should have plenty of water.
On Friday morning the municipality had yet to lift the boil water advisory it had in place since July 18 which, combined with the power outage, meant many residents did not have access to drinkable water.
The advisory was however lifted around 1 p.m. on Friday.
Shawville residents can also pick up drinking water at the municipality, and those who cannot do so can call the municipality to have it delivered to their homes.
The outage is posing other challenges for the municipality.
For one, the communications system it uses to share important information with residents has been disabled.
The town is using a second small generator to power minimal electricity at the town hall, just enough to charge phones so that municipal staff can still take calls, but not enough to run the internet, which is needed to run the town’s emergency communications system.
“You’re handcuffed when you don’t have internet in this day and age,” McCleary said.
He said residents can still call the municipality at 819-647-2979, extensions 1 or 3 to request assistance or delivery of drinking water, and that the municipality will be posting updates regarding services to its Facebook page.
Shawville is also lacking options for spaces to offer people in need of cooling down as temperatures rise this afternoon.
McCleary said during winter outages in the past, the town has used its emergency generator to keep the arena open as a place where people could have showers and stay warm.
“But right now our portable generator is powering the well, so we don’t have access to that for the arena. But there would be no air conditioning so I don’t know if there would be any point in putting electricity at the arena,” he said, noting one of the halls at the fairgrounds as a potential second option.
“It’s going to be a situation where it’s going to be damn warm this afternoon, but hopefully by then [the power] is going to be back on.”
Municipality of Pontiac
Municipality of Pontiac mayor Roger Larose said municipal crews were out Thursday night clearing fallen trees from the roads, but they’ve done all they can and are now waiting for HQ to clear debris from the lines.
The water pump that runs the water system in Quyon is on a generator, so water access for residents in that town isn’t a problem.
“Most of the people here are pretty well used to running out of power, but if we do have a problem I have a generator I can always use to run the centre in Luskville, if it gets hot enough and we need help,” Larose said.
