Thousands of customers without power across Quebec

Thousands of customers were without power across Quebec on Easter Sunday as strong winds take down transmission lines in some regions, according to Hydro-Québec.

At 7:24 p.m. Sunday, 1,704 addresses were were without power in the province, with Montéregie and Estrie regions taking the worst hit.

Around 12:30 p.m. as high as 24,450 Hydro customers were touched by the outages.

In Montérégie, 1,038 customers were without electricity and in Estrie there were 378 outages, according to Hydro-Québec.

There were no outages reported in Montreal or Laval.

In a statement to CityNews, the power utility said that strong wind conditions were to blame for the outages.

“Weather conditions over the past few hours have caused power outages in some regions of Québec, mainly due to strong winds and vegetation coming into contact with power lines,” said Audrey St-Pierre, spokesperson for Hydro-Québec.

“Our crews are deployed in the field and are working to restore service as quickly as possible. Among the outages, a transmission line in the Eastern Townships region was impacted by a fallen tree, and crews are currently on site,” she added.

Affected customers must see power restored by later today, St-Pierre said.