Thousands of residents in Atlantic Canada were still without power on Sunday, and authorities reported finding the corpse of a woman who had been dragged into the water after the former hurricane Fiona destroyed homes, removed roofs, and blocked roads across the region’s Atlantic provinces.
Fiona, a post-tropical cyclone that had surged north from the Caribbean, made landfall before dawn on Saturday and pummeled Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and Quebec with hurricane-force winds, rain, and waves.
Anita Anand, the defense minister, said that soldiers will assist with clearing fallen trees, reopening transit routes, and doing any other necessary tasks for until long it takes.
At least five fatalities in the Caribbean and one in Canada were attributed to Fiona. In Channel-Port Aux Basques, a community on Newfoundland’s southern coast, authorities discovered the corpse of a 73-year-old lady in the sea after she went missing.
Police said that the lady was at her house when a wave smashed the building early on Saturday morning, taking away a piece of the basement. The Canadian Coast Guard and other rescue teams helped the Royal Canadian Mounted Police find the woman’s corpse late on Sunday afternoon, according to a press statement posted on social media.
Gudie Hutchings, a Newfoundland member of parliament, stated, “Living in coastal areas, we know what might happen and regrettably the water has stolen another from us.
Over 211,000 customers of Nova Scotia Power and over 81,000 customers of Maritime Electric, or roughly 95% of the total, were still without power as of Sunday evening in the province of Prince Edward Island. In New Brunswick, more than 20,600 houses and businesses were also destroyed.
In the province of roughly 1 million people, over 415,000 Nova Scotia Power customers were impacted by outages on Saturday.
Before everyone’s lights come back on, according to utility firms, it might take many days.
Over 200 people were staying in temporary shelters, according to Amanda McDougall, mayor of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, on Sunday. In her area, more than 70 roads were entirely impassable. The number of houses destroyed in her own area, she said, was too many to count.
She said that the route to the airport is impassable and the tower has sustained substantial damage, saying it was crucial for the military to show there and assist in clearing debris.
McDougall said that it is incredible there are no injuries in her neighborhood.
People paid attention to the warnings and followed the instructions, and this was the outcome, she said.
Dennis King, the premier of Prince Edward Island, said that more than 100 military men will arrive on Sunday to help with recovery work. Monday and Tuesday will see no classes. He said that several bridges are damaged.
It will require a “herculean effort by thousands of people” to recover over the next few days and weeks, King said, adding that the devastation is “beyond anything that we’ve seen in our province’s history.”
It would probably take “several days,” said to Kim Griffin, a spokesman for Prince Edward Island’s electrical company, to restore power to the whole island.
Sean Casey, a member of parliament for Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, remarked that the general feeling was one of amazement and wonder at the storm’s size. He also mentioned how committed the people are to launch a recovery effort. After the first gas station in his neighborhood opened on a Sunday afternoon, a lengthy wait rapidly developed.
Generators and chainsaws can be heard all across the town, according to Casey.
The federal government will also deploy around 100 military soldiers to Newfoundland and Labrador as it moves to recover from the storm, according to Bill Blair, minister of disaster preparation.
Port Aux Basques, Newfoundland, was hit by furious waves that swept whole buildings into the water.
Brian Button, the mayor, said on social media that “this is not a one-day issue where we can all go back to normal.” Unfortunately, this will probably take a few days, or even a few weeks or even months.
Button pleaded for patience as authorities determined where and when residents may safely return to their homes in the 4,000-person village that had been evacuated in large portions. He said that some locals are displaying their rage and want to return at the barricades.
Additionally, in Puerto Rico, authorities were still attempting to assess the extent of the damage and fix it after Fiona devastated the U.S. island a week ago.
As of Sunday, 20% of Puerto Rico’s 1.3 million water users were without service, while roughly 45% of the island’s 1.47 million electricity customers were still without power due to employees’ struggles to access flooded power substations and repair broken lines.
Due to a temporary scarcity of gasoline for generators, gas stations, grocery shops, and other businesses had to close. The National Guard first delivered fuel to hospitals and other important infrastructure.
“We’re beginning from scratch,” said Carmen Rivera as she and her wife swept up water, tossed away their broken appliances, and added to the mountain of decaying furniture and wet mattresses bordering their flooded street in Toa Baja.
The extent of the storm’s damage was being evaluated by officials throughout Eastern Canada as it headed inland across southeast Quebec.
In the largest city in Nova Scotia, according to Halifax Mayor Mike Savage, an apartment building’s roof fell, and 100 people were taken to an evacuation center. No one was badly harmed, he said.
According to a tweet from the Canadian Hurricane Centre, Fiona had the lowest pressure ever observed for a storm making landfall in Canada, which is a crucial indicator of storm severity.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that extreme weather events need more robust infrastructure since “we’re seeing more catastrophic storms more regularly.”