Fiona could be “a Dorian-level event,” Nova Scotia Power storm chief Matt Drover told reporters earlier Friday, referring to the 2019 storm that knocked out power to some in the province for a week. As of 3 a.m., there were more than 360,000 Nova Scotia customers without power, according to the utility’s online outage map. That’s about 70 per cent of Nova Scotia Power customers. Many of those outages are due to high winds and rain, according to the map. He said power could be restored Saturday for some, while others may have to wait until Wednesday.
CBC Radio provides live storm updates around the clock. Listeners are invited to call in to share their storm experiences and any emergency updates from their communities. The phone number is 1-800-565-1940 or 902-420-4451. Listen online, via the CBC Listen app or over the air (90.5 FM in Halifax, 92.1 FM in Sydney or check your local frequency here).
High winds make it difficult to restore power, Drover said. “When the winds rise [80 km/h]we will stand under the bins,” he said at a briefing on Friday afternoon. “We can still go out and make estimates of what the damage might be, but we won’t actually be able to get the bins up in the air until the winds drop below 80.” Fiona is expected to make landfall as a strong post-tropical storm. Environment Canada says wind gusts could reach 120 km/h or higher in parts of Sydney and Halifax. More than 800 Nova Scotia Power workers are in the field ready to restore power and “hundreds more behind the scenes [are] coordinating that effort,” Drover said. Most of Nova Scotia’s electricity infrastructure is above ground, with more than half a million poles across the province, Drover said, although some are underground. “Especially in rural Nova Scotia where there’s a significant amount of rock in the ground, it’s expensive to install lines underground.” “And when outages happen – underground systems are not without outages – when there are problems with those systems, sometimes it can take longer to restore those outages, it takes a while to find where the problem is.” Although crews won’t be able to restore lines in very high winds, Drover encouraged people to report downed lines.
Avoid downloaded lines, report immediately
“If you see wires down, don’t go anywhere near them,” Drover said. He said hospitals and public health facilities will be the priority for rehabilitation. “And then we’ll go into communities and subcommunities from there and individual homes at the end of the rehab,” Drover said.
Stay away from the sea
Nova Scotia’s incident management division for the Nova Scotia Office of Emergency Management said the province “will definitely be hit hard.” “It’s going to be a big storm. We’re asking all Nova Scotians to be safe, have a 72-hour preparedness kit and check on neighbors,” Jason Mew, director of the Office of Emergency Management’s incident management division, told reporters of Nova Scotia. . Erica Fleck, assistant chief of emergency management for Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency, said the downtown Halifax waterfront and Peggys Cove boardwalk will be closed later Friday. “It’s going to be really dangerous, and any area near the water, we’d really prefer people stay inside and be safe,” Fleck said. Christina Lamey, spokeswoman for the Regional Municipality of Cape Breton, said Center 200 will be open later Friday night for people who may feel unsafe in the storm. Center 200 will open at 8 p.m
The Center 200 opens in Cape Breton tonight
“If people could bring in their own supplies as much as possible, that would be good,” Lamey said. The community homeless shelter on Townsend Street in Sydney will be open overnight through the storm for people experiencing homelessness. Lamey and Fleck said the locations of the comfort centers will be announced once it is safe to travel again. Lamey said people should not travel during the storm. Membertou School in Cape Breton will open as a heating center in the event of power outages, Development Membertou told CBC News in an email.
