Restoration continues

80 per cent of P.E.I. has power, still a week away for recovery of some households

Some households in P.E.I. could be waiting more than another week to get power as Maritime Electric continues its recovery efforts following post-tropical storm Fiona.

During an Oct. 3 briefing, Kim Griffin, spokesperson for the Island’s power utility, said around 80 per cent of P.E.I. households have been reconnected after 10 days without power, leaving approximately 16,500 still in the dark.

Griffin said there are about 10,000 individual outages across the Island.

Over the next few days, 216 crews will be focusing on reconnecting 106 neighbourhoods throughout Charlottetown, Stratford and other rural communities across the Island by Wednesday. Afterwards, crews will be redeployed to the individual outages.

“We believe we can have the vast majority of individual outages, so those 10,000 I spoke about, completed by this Sunday. There still may be some smaller pockets of individual pockets of outages … but we’re going to take over 200 crews and redeploy them to these individual outages,” she said.

Griffin said a list of those 106 neighbourhoods will

be posted and updated daily with reconnection estimates online.

When asked about the

challenges that are keeping some pockets of communities without power, Griffin said damage to surrounding infrastructure has caused a lot of delays, noting an area on Belvedere Avenue that required a complete rebuild to its power infrastructure.

“It's all been about the damage and rebuilds. In some of those places, we had to put the full infrastructure back in. It's not simply just stringing up wire, as we say.”

Another issue crews are running into while working is distracted drivers. Griffin said at one point, a crew’s truck was hit by a car while they were setting up their scene to work.

“They are fine, but people are rattled on our team by things like that. They need to focus on getting the power on and not be thinking about anything else.”

Griffin said those working to restore power understand things are tense and people are still without power, but suggested people avoid worksites so they can work as efficiently as possible.

Meanwhile, some Islanders

were in line to receive recovery funding payments of $250 as early as Oct. 3.

At the briefing, Premier Dennis King said 5,000 households will be receiving that payment via e-transfer, with more expected to come throughout the week.

Bill Lawlor, director of Atlantic government and strategic relations for the Red Cross, said around 14,300 households have registered for the $250 cash injection. He said each registration has to go through a verification process.

“They’ve given us an address that is on the Island, but we are verifying somehow that there is a record somewhere that connects that family to that property, whether it's an apartment or a home. We need to verify that they are who they say they are,” he said during the briefing.

Lawlor said the 5,000 receiving payments have passed through their verification process.

As the province looks toward the future following Fiona, one thing is certain – many properties are in need of repair.

During the briefing, King said the province is working with the Construction Association

of P.E.I. to create a database of Islanders needing assistance with repairs in an effort to try to match them with contractors as soon as possible.

“While we know the construction industry was going full tilt before Fiona, we know these contractors are our local neighbours and friends, and in speaking with them, they want to do everything they can to help. … We’re trying hard to play matchmaker and get that help to Islanders as quickly as we can,” he said.

Those in need of repairs interested in adding themselves to the database can email fionahelp@capei.ca or call 902370-4327.

King said the province is also looking for contractors locally and regionally who are interested in assisting in repairs to reach out to CAPEI by email at contractors@ capei.ca.

In his update, King said the government has been focusing on things it can help with and he knows there are gaps provincial staff are working on identifying.

More up-to-date information has been added to the government’s storm response website, he said.