Maritime Electric, P.E.I.’s foremost electrical utility, continued the onerous slog of restoring principally particular person power outages on Tuesday, returning power to about 600 clients 19 days after Fiona knocked it out.
(*19*) following the post-tropical storm on Sept. 24 electrical energy was out for the entire province. With the work executed Tuesday about 2,900 clients must be reconnected. Given a mean of two.3 Islanders per family, that represents about 6,600 folks.
There are still some line outages that the utility is coping with. Two of the bigger outages, in Dingwells Mills and Lewes, had been restored Tuesday.
In some situations crews are seeing the injury at restore websites for the primary time this week, mentioned Maritime Electric spokesperson Kim Griffin, and the injury is worse than anticipated.
“We haven’t got eyes on all of those clients. We have descriptions from a few of these clients,” Griffin advised CBC News Tuesday.
“Today, because the crews had been working to get power on [for] a few of these clients, was the primary time they’ve seen them. We have clients that we had been speaking to in the present day and tomorrow that we’re even having points getting entry down their personal roads for instance. So these clients on the finish of the highway, up till now till Friday, are going to take the longest.”
She mentioned crews tried to evaluate injury within the first two days after the storm, however as a result of some areas had been inaccessible it wasn’t at all times doable to make an correct evaluation.
The aim is still to get many of the remaining households again on-line by Friday, mentioned Griffin.
‘As a lot scrutiny … as wanted’
Premier Dennis King says he’s open to holding a public inquiry into the federal government’s response to Fiona.
The province merely wasn’t ready for the extent of destruction attributable to the storm, mentioned King.
P.E.I. Premier Dennis King speaks with CBC News: Compass host Louise Martin on what’s being executed, and what might be executed sooner or later.
“This has been probably the most catastrophic factor we have ever handled, so we’ll have a deep dive on this,” mentioned King.
“We’ll definitely have as a lot scrutiny on this as wanted so we are able to be taught from it and hopefully be even higher ready the subsequent time.”
King mentioned he would not be stunned if the price of all damages attributable to Fiona attain half a billion {dollars} on P.E.I. alone.