N.B. Power aims to have all power restored by Christmas
About 38,000 customers still without power Wednesday afternoon
After a storm rocked New Brunswick with high winds and heavy rain on Monday and overnight into Tuesday, nearly 38,000 N.B. Power customers were still without power Wednesday afternoon, mostly in Charlotte County and the Fredericton area.
But N.B. Power is more hopeful today that people won't be spending any holidays in the dark.
"Our goal right now is to have all of our customers restored by Christmas," said Nicole Poirier, vice-president of operations with N.B. Power.
N.B. Power president Lori Clark said that since a peak of about 129,000 affected customers on Monday, about 85,000 outages have been fixed so far by crews.
In
St. Stephen, 93 km/h was the top wind speed recorded on Monday,
according to Environment Canada. Residents said they had never seen
anything like it. (Roger Cosman/CBC)
All hospitals have power, she said, adding that crews from Saint John Energy, Edmundston Energy, and some private contractors are also help.
"I know being without power is very difficult for our customers, especially as we approach the holidays," Clark said.
But many still remain without power, and officials had warned to be prepared for "prolonged outages" on Tuesday.
'These people are stranded,' says mayor
John Craig, mayor of the municipality of Eastern Charlotte, is concerned about trees still blocking Wellington Road in Blacks Harbour.
"There's a couple hundred people who were stranded and caught down there for a couple days. It's not so bad they're out of power, it's the point they can't get out of there,' Craig said.
"And we can't get in there, we can't get a firetruck in there, we can't get an ambulance down there. These people are stranded."
Craig said that N.B. Power crews are doing a good job, but wants this street to be more of a priority. At one point, trees blocked the main road to Blacks Harbour and the Grand Manan ferry terminal, before it was cleared.
"This road has to be cleared, and they're not making it a priority for the safety of those people."
No one in Harvey has power
As crews work to restore power, the rural community of Harvey, about a half-hour's drive southwest of Fredericton, remained fully without power on Wednesday.
"The whole place went down and it's never come back," said Mayor Richard Corey. "The entire 350 square miles of [Harvey Rural Community] has been without power since then. That's it."
As residents went onto day three of no power, Corey said, he needs to have clearer iformation from N.B. Power and the Emergency Management Organization about when power might be restored for his community.
When he contacted N.B. Power and the province to ask about restoration times, he was redirected to the N.B. Power outage website, the same resource that is publicly available to residents.
"The better we're able to communicate to our residents," Corey said. "The better they'll feel. When they call me and I say 'well look at the nb power website' well that doesn't give them much confidence.
"We need to get better at honest, truthful communication. If it's going to be 48 hours then say 48 hours."
There were still many downed trees on power lines in the Harvey area on Wednesday. (Ed Hunter/CBC)
When asked about communication with municipalities, Clark said they utility has someone working directly with EMO, who would then communicate with the communities
"We also have in some cases, municipalities reaching out to us if we have information we can share with them, we would. But a lot of that communication is through EMO."
Poirier added that N.B. Power has "one resource internally dedicated to mayors and communities … and he would be working hourly and daily with those municipalities to provide them updates."
Residents grappling with outages
Mavis Doucette, a resident of Hanwell, a suburb outside Fredericton, found herself in a tricky situation when she lost power. She had three freezers filled with food and needed to act quickly.
Luckily, a friend called her on Tuesday to say she could make room in her own freezer. The two worked to clean out Doucette's freezers and still had to throw out $300 to $400 worth of food.
But Doucette saved the most important things, about $700 worth, and the food is now in her friend's freezer.
"It just shows you that there's good people out there willing to help," Doucette said.
Couture told Information Morning Fredericton on Wednesday that damage is extensive, but N.B. Power was prepared and has additional crews coming out to help.
She said the priority for restoration was "critical infrastructure," such as health centres, fire and police.
"That was the main focus yesterday," she said.
"Then we have to restore power or address things that are public safety concerns. So, for example, if we see live wires ... And then we focus on the outages that can bring back the most amount of customers in the least amount of time."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from Sam Farley, Lars Schwarz, and Frederic Cammarano
N.B. Power seeking rate hikes of almost 10 per cent in 2024, 2025
Despite longer debt deadline, utility says 2 big increases needed to maintain service, start tackling debt
Jacques Poitras · CBC News · Posted: Dec 15, 2023 1:03 PM AST
"The requested increases are necessary to allow N.B. Power to fulfil its core responsibility, and to make modest improvements in its financial health," says the application.
"N.B. Power is concerned about affordability for our customers as they face a variety of inflationary pressures and recognizes that many customers will be challenged by this proposed increase."
An additional three-per-cent increase in April 2024 because of a cost variance account, and the end of a rebate this year from the same account worth 0.9 per cent, will bring the total residential rate increase to 13.7 per cent next year.
Most of that additional increase is due to the Point Lepreau nuclear station being out of service for an extended period last winter.
Energy Minister Mike Holland acknowledged that a 13.7 per cent hike will be difficult to swallow but he defended the utility's decision to set the figure it needs to address its debt.
"Nobody wants to see something like that, but it is a part of the process of the utility properly putting together a rate increase request," he said.
Wed, Dec 20, 2023 at 4:27 PM.
Matter 552 - NB Power 2024-2025 General Rate Application / Instance no 552 - Énergie NB Demande générale de tarifs 2024-2025
Good afternoon,
Please find attached an Order and a Notice from the New Brunswick
Energy and Utilities Board.
Bonjour,
S'il vous plait trouver ci-joint une ordonnance et un avis de la
Commission de l'énergie et des services publics du Nouveau-Brunswick.