The latest:
- As of 2 p.m. ET Saturday, more than 200,000 Hydro-Québec customers were still without power.
- Hydro-Québec says most households will have power back within 24 hours, but more than 100,000 will have to wait until Monday.
- The Quebec government is allowing big box grocery stores in certain regions to be open Easter Sunday.
- More than 875,000 customers have regained power from the peak of 1.1 million on Thursday.
- 2 people have died, one after being hit by a falling branch, the other after using a generator in a garage.
- 70 people were treated for carbon monoxide poisoning.
- The City of Montreal is starting to issue parking tickets on residential streets again.
- If the power or data on your device is low, get your storm updates on CBC Lite. It's our low-bandwidth, text-only website.
- To keep an eye on the outages, click here.
Hydro-Québec crews are working throughout the long weekend to restore power to more than 200,000 customers still in the dark following Wednesday's ice storm.
The lights went off for more than a million people and the storm has been linked to two deaths.
More than 875,000 customers have had their power restored, from the peak of 1.1 million on Thursday morning.
At a news conference Saturday, Hydro-Québec said it is hoping most households will regain power by the end of the weekend, but couldn't give a precise timeline. Some may stay without power until Monday as about 1,500 workers are on the ground working to restore power lines.
Maxime Nadeau, the director of energy system control at Hydro-Québec, said Montreal is now the top priority and teams have come in from other regions to lend a hand. Private contractors were also hired.
"We want to make sure we can restore things as quickly as possible," he said.
"The bulk part of our distribution system has been restored, so now we are doing some work on outages with a smaller amount of customers attached to them. When we restore an outage, fewer customers regain power, so the rhythm of restoration will be slower."
He said some power lines are more damaged than others and may take longer to repair, meaning some people will have to stay in the dark throughout the Easter weekend. Most outages were caused by felled trees, he said.
"We hope to have restored a million customers by tomorrow, which would leave 100,000 to 150,000 customers without electricity," he said.
In Montreal, nearly 140,000 customers were still without power Saturday. Thousands of customers in the Lanaudière, Laval, Laurentians, Montérégie and Outaouais regions are also still waiting for power.
Intermittent power outages
Nadeau said the outages shouldn't last longer than a few more days. It's also possible for some households to regain power and lose it again temporarily.
Pierre Fitzgibbon, minister of economy, innovation and energy, said that on the bright side, the outages were not caused by Hydro-Québec equipment failures.
"The situation we were in could happen again; we must solidify what we have right now," he said.
He also called on Quebecers to be careful with using gas-powered appliances indoors after one man died and about 70 people were treated in hospital for carbon monoxide poisoning.
"We have to be careful. One death is one death too much," he said.
WATCH | Bury power lines to minimize future outages, expert says:
Montreal's public security workers have been going door to door in areas still without power and making more carbon monoxide-related calls to ensure everyone is safe.
A 75-year-old man died in Saint-Joseph-du-Lac, Que., Friday after using a generator in his garage. The Deux-Montagnes police service said the level of carbon monoxide in the air was higher than normal.
It's the second death linked to the storm in Quebec. On Thursday, a man in Les Coteaux died while attempting to cut down tree branches on his property.
Grocery stores open Easter Sunday in affected regions
Temporary shelters where people can warm up and charge their devices will stay open this weekend.
The Quebec government announced that some grocery stores will be open on Sunday, despite the Easter holiday, in most of the affected regions to ensure food security for the population in exceptional circumstances.
Fitzgibbon said grocery stores can reopen in Montreal, Laval, Lanaudière, the Montérégie, the Outoutais, and the Lower Laurentians.
The stores can be open between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., but store hours will vary according to the company.
But some other businesses — like one flower shop in Pointe-Claire in Montreal's West Island — stand to lose a lot of money because of the power outages.
Fig Fleurs has been without electricity since Wednesday. It just received a huge shipment for Easter.
"Everything will have to be thrown out because we have no way of, you know, refrigerating flowers," said co-owner Marie Vallée.
"It's a tragedy and it's a huge loss for us."
Vallée says she and her partner have been trying to get clients in, but it hasn't been easy given there's no one around on the normally bustling shopping strip in the Pointe-Claire village.
"I mean, we can hang on to things for a few days, but if we don't get any power, it's serious," she said.
More than 5,562 Hydro-Québec customers in Pointe-Claire are without power. Dollard-Des Ormeaux and Pierrefonds are the hardest hit regions in the West Island, with more than 11,700 and 12,400 clients in the dark, respectively.
Ticketing resumes Saturday morning
On Friday, city of Montreal spokesperson Philippe Sabourin said most major roads have been cleared, though fallen branches still littered some city streets on Saturday.
The city issued a statement saying it would not issue tickets until Saturday morning for cars parked in areas with spring cleaning restrictions and reserved parking restrictions.
"If tickets have been issued in these cases, the sustainable mobility agency will take the necessary steps required in order to cancel them," a Friday statement read.
Sabourin also urged people to stay out of parks, which are closed, as they are still being cleaned up. He said it will take days to pick up all fallen branches.
Heavy ice — in some cases up to 25 millimetres of it, according to Environment Canada — sent branches crashing onto power lines, streets and cars on Wednesday.
More than 100,000 Quebecers likely won't get power back until Monday, says Hydro-Québec - CBC.ca
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