Cars drive slowly through water overflowing on to highway 40 in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue on the island of Montreal after heavy rains hit the area on Friday, August 9, 2024.Peter Mccabe/The Canadian Press
Tens of thousands of hydro customers in Quebec remained without power Saturday after post-tropical storm Debby drenched the province with record amounts of rain that caused flooding and damaged roads and bridges in several areas.
Provincial police said an 80-year-old man was missing in Notre-Dame-de-Montauban after the road collapsed near the Batiscan River around 11:30 p.m. Friday. Spokesperson Camille Savoie said police were using drones and a helicopter to search for the man as the riverbanks remained steep and dangerous to venture on in the area.
In a statement on X, formerly Twitter, Quebec’s Minister of Public Security François Bonnardel said Saturday that the storm “impacted nearly 35 municipalities across Quebec, including three that have declared a local state of emergency.” He said 344 people were evacuated, 1,539 residences were isolated, and nearly 100 roads were affected.
Quebec Premier François Legault said on X that the provincial government was supporting the affected municipalities.
Hydro Quebec said in a statement on its website that nearly 500,000 customers were left without electricity at the peak of the outage Friday night.
Outages were concentrated in the greater Montreal area, Montérégie, Estrie and Chaudière-Appalaches regions.
“We are mobilizing all available teams to restore service as quickly as possible,” Hydro Quebec said in the statement.
The outages were “due to breakdowns caused by strong gusts of wind” and vegetation near the grid, the statement said. In an update posted on X Saturday, the public utility corporation said flooded facilities also caused outages but that it expected 95 per cent of customers to be back on the grid by that night.
In Montreal, where about 2,000 customers remained without power Saturday afternoon, heavy rains and high winds flooded streets and felled trees, plunging large swaths of the city in the dark Friday night.
Up to 173 millimetres of rain drenched the western tip of Montreal island on Friday, while 145 mm fell on the downtown area. Both totals shattered the previous single-day record of 102.8 mm recorded in the Montreal area in November 1996. Friday’s rainfall also far exceeded the average quantity of rain for the entire month of August, which is 94.1 mm.
But other parts of the province saw even greater levels of precipitation. The municipality of Lanoraie in the Lanaudière region was lashed with 221 mm.
Quebec’s Transport Ministry released a statement on Saturday saying the storm caused major damage to several roadways, with the Lanaudière and Mauricie regions hardest hit.
Outside Quebec, Fredericton was hit with 57.8 mm of rain when the storm moved east to New Brunswick, and more precipitation is in the forecast. Yang said the city could expect some showers on Saturday afternoon, but nothing as dramatic as what Quebec experienced.
Several municipalities in Ontario also saw their share of rain during Friday’s storm. Summerstown received 117.9 mm of rain, while Kinburn, Cornwall and Ottawa each recorded 115.8, 95 and 74.7 mm respectively.
A statement from the City of Ottawa also said some roads in the West Carleton and Kanata neighbourhoods were badly damaged.
With a report from The Canadian Press