About 8,000 Maritime Electric customers were still without power Wednesday evening, 12 days after Post-Tropical Storm Fiona hit PEI.
The company has an online list that shows different areas of the island, roughly how many customers still need power and when they can expect it to be restored.
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Most neighborhoods should have power restored by Wednesday evening, spokeswoman Kim Griffin said.
However, places like Mermaid and Johnstons River could be waiting until Thursday. Murray Harbor and Grand Tracadie are scheduled for Friday. Some Stanhope customers could be without lights, heat or running water until Sunday.
The utility said it would begin deploying crews Wednesday to focus on individual outages, including areas with only one or two homes without power.
Maritime Electric expects to have up to 98 percent of power restored Sunday, more than two weeks after the storm initially made landfall on the island.
The post-tropical storm struck in the early morning hours of September 24, causing widespread island-wide damage (downed trees, destroyed crops, coastal erosion) and leaving 82,000 Maritime Electric customers without power immediately following the storm.
Why some PEI schools remain closed
Norbert Carpenter, director of the public schools branch, talks to CBC News: Compass anchor Louise Martin about the state of school closures after Fiona.
5 schools remain closed
More students will also return to the classroom on Wednesday. While most students returned on Oct. 3, a handful of schools had remained closed due to power outages or storm damage.
Donagh Regional School reopened on Wednesday and those attending Cardigan Consolidated will resume classes in a temporary location at Montague Regional High School.
Crews continue to work to restore power in Charlottetown on Tuesday. (Shane Ross/CBC News)
Prince Street Elementary, Queen Charlotte Intermediate, St. Jean Elementary, West Kent Elementary and École Évangéline are still closed.
Classes at the École Évangéline, which suffered substantial damage, are being moved to the L’Exposition agricole et le Festival acadien site, but no start date has been announced.
Norbert Carpenter, director of the public schools branch, said he is concerned about the time lost in the classroom. But after consultation with the fire department, Maritime Electric, public works and other safety officials, the decision was made to keep the four English schools closed.
“I think it’s very frustrating for our parents, and it’s also frustrating for us because we want students back in schools, but we have to listen to safety officials and their strong recommendations.”
Red Cross registrations are growing
So far, the Canadian Red Cross said almost $15 million has been raised for Fiona’s help in Atlantic Canada, and a further announcement is expected later this week on how that money will be distributed.
The organization had set up a disaster shelter in Charlottetown for those in need of temporary relocation. The shelter closed its doors late Tuesday night, but cribs, blankets and other items were left in the province.
“People in the general public weren’t asking for specific support there,” Bill Lawlor, director of the Red Cross in PEI, told Island Morning host Mitch Cormier.
Lawlor added that in some situations they were able to put people like the elderly and people with children into hotels.
An aerial view of Fiona’s path of destruction in PEI
This drone footage gathered by CBC video producer Shane Hennessey this Sunday shows the extensive damage caused by Post-Tropical Storm Fiona in parts of the island.
The province has also partnered with the Red Cross to offer eligible households $250 in financial support.
According to Lawlor, just over 8,000 households on the island have received this money, and registrations for the funds are increasing dramatically.
“We hoped that… [as] neighborhoods are re-energized and have access to their public services that they didn’t have from the beginning,” he said.
But the support only applies to primary residences, so cottage owners are not eligible.
“We’re really focusing on needs rather than loss. I know there’s a lot of loss, but we’re really focusing on basic needs and that would be the primary residence,” he said.
“Our house was no longer there”
Jim Randall lives in Charlottetown, but has owned a waterfront cottage in the New London Bay Area for about a decade; was badly damaged by the storm.
“We learned like everybody else first thing in the morning when the sun came up that there was a problem,” he said.
“We had been told that our cottage was no longer there.”
Randall said he’s not entirely sure what happened the night Fiona got trapped, but now only the top half remains.
“All that’s left … is the upper half of the cottage,” says owner Jim Randall. (Submitted by Jim Randall)
Randall said he understands that the priority of relief funds should be focused on people whose primary residences were damaged. Still, he wonders if help will finally come for cottage owners like him who also face destruction.
“It might not be as high a priority right now, but it’s still there,” he said.
“There are a lot of cottage owners on this island who are seniors and it’s a big part of their lives in the past and it’s a big part, potentially, of their financial savings and their well-being.”
“Thousands of Tasks”
As cleanup continues after Fiona, restoration companies repairing water and structural damage are busier than ever. In fact, some professionals estimate that it will take years to fix all the damage to homes and businesses.
“We’ve taken on thousands of tasks,” said Daniel Loosemore, head of sales and operations for ServiceMaster Restore Canada.
“The urgency is really around helping the … owners on the island, the business owners who are trying to get back in business as quickly as possible and trying to serve them in one of their greatest times of need.”
Daniel Loosemore, head of sales and operations for ServiceMaster Restore Canada, seen here looking at a Charlottetown home, says the priority is completing emergency repairs to prevent further damage. (Jessica Doria-Brown/CBC PEI)
Loosemore said about 35 percent of his company’s network is currently on the island doing restoration work. The priority right now is to provide emergency services to prevent further damage to the buildings.
“We see a lot of collapsed roofs and sometimes a lot worse than that,” he said.
“We’re going to have water in the basement, water coming in so sometimes it can smell, but it’s really our job to go in there and mitigate that additional damage.”
Once those emergency repairs are completed, he said permanent repairs can begin.