Crews continue work as thousands remain without power four days after Arthur

HALIFAX – Thousands of households and businesses remained without power Wednesday in areas of the Maritimes, four days after they were ravaged by the force of post-tropical storm Arthur.

In New Brunswick, which sustained the greatest damage in Saturday’s storm, utility crews continued work in the hardest hit areas in and around Fredericton and the southwestern part of the province.

NB Power spokeswoman Meghan Gerrish said the utility hoped to have 80 per cent of its customers affected by the outages back online by Thursday night, with the remainder to be restored by the weekend.

Gerrish said 275 crews were repairing damage caused by thousands of fallen trees.

“In some areas it’s going to take three or four crews to get power restored to customers in more remote locations,” said Gerrish.

She said cranes and large boom trucks were being used as crews dealt with damage to electrical infrastructure. Gerrish didn’t have a province-wide estimate but said in the Fredericton-area alone, the utility had to deal with more than 2,000 fallen trees and replace more than 40 power poles.

Just more than 42,000 customers in New Brunswick were without electricity as of 1 p.m. Wednesday.

Nova Scotia Power’s website said more than 5,000 customers were still without electricity around the same time, with the majority of the outages in the Annapolis Valley.

Arthur knocked out power to more than 250,000 customers at the height of Saturday’s storm.