HALIFAX: Provincial officials are assessing the damage from Hurricane Fiona which has been roaring through the Strait region with powerful wind, heavy rain, and high seas since yesterday.
Bob Robichaud, Warning Preparedness Meteorologist with the Canadian Hurricane Centre (CHC), told this afternoon’s provincial media briefing that the wind would remain gusty into the evening.
“The storm was declared post-tropical, right around midnight Atlantic Time, and then subsequently made landfall in Guysborough County, sometime between 3 and 4 a.m., before it crossed Cape Breton,” he confirmed.
Early Saturday morning, the CHC posted on Twitter: “…It looks like #Fiona has recently made landfall between Canso and Guysborough. With an unofficial recorded pressure at Hart Island of 931.6 (millibars), this makes Fiona the lowest pressured land falling storm on record in Canada.”
During a media briefing on Sept. 22, Robichaud explained that the Hurricane interacted with a trough of low pressure located over the eastern part of the United States that moved into western portions of Atlantic Canada, resulting in an “extremely strong and dangerous storm.”
With most models predicting Hurricane Fiona as a post tropical storm, Robichaud cautioned that means the storm would have both tropical and non-tropical characteristics.
With storm surges of up to 2.5 metres expected along the Atlantic coast, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) reported today seas from 11 to 14 metres along the Eastern Shore, at Forchu seas were measured from 12 to 15 metres, and some waves over eastern portions of the Gulf of St. Lawrence were higher than 12 metres.
“We have had reports of some coastal flooding, but some of those reports are still coming in,” noted Robichaud.
Robichaud said there were rainfall amounts between 100 and 150 millimetres north of Truro.
“The highest rain, certainly in most areas, from yesterday morning up until this morning saw upwards of 80 or 90 millimetres,” Ian Hubbard, a meteorologist with the Canadian Hurricane Centre, told The Reporter.
According to the CHC, preliminary reports from Beaver Island, off the Eastern Shore, had wind guests at 165 km/h, while the Sydney airport recorded gusts up to 149 km/hr.
The roof was blown off this trailer in Arichat after Hurricane Fiona made landfall early this morning.
When the winds picked up late Friday, into Saturday morning, the power went out for approximately 400,000 Nova Scotia Power (NSP) customers.
“We are seeing significant damage as Fiona moves across the province and it’s important to remember it isn’t over yet,” Peter Gregg, Nova Scotia Power President and CEO said. “Our crews will be restoring power as quickly as possible, once it is safe to do so.”
In a press release issued this morning, NSP said Hurricane Fiona continued to impact communities across Nova Scotia with extreme wind and heavy rain, and they were seeing “significant impacts” from the storm, including uprooted trees, broken poles, and downed power lines across the province.
“We’ve seen significant wind… we still do see some remaining significant wind, in parts of the province; peak winds that we really haven’t seen before,” Gregg said during the briefing. “Cape Breton is seeing extremely extensive damage.”
As a result, Gregg said some customers could be without power for days. As of Saturday night, there were outages affecting 7,326 customers in Richmond County and the Town of Port Hawkesbury, in Antigonish and Guysborough counties 12,728 customers had no power, and there were 4,731 affected customers in southern Inverness County.
“The storm is still active and our crews are continuing to assess the damage, so It’s hard to say how long outages will last at this point,” Jacqueline Foster, NSP Senior Communications Advisor emailed The Reporter. “We do know customers in some parts of the province will see outages for multiple days.”
Gregg said there are more than 900 powerline technicians, forestry technicians, and damage assessors in the field, with hundreds more, including engineers, dispatchers and customer service representatives, working behind the scenes to support crews and customers. Crews from New Brunswick, Maine, and Quebec arrived Friday, they noted.
“If we need more resources, we will not hesitate to reach out, in fact we’re having conversations with many of our neighbours right now, and continue to talk to our neighbouring utilities so we have more crews on the way, from as far away as Ontario and Maine,” Gregg told the briefing.
Troy Webb, with the Department of Public Works, told the briefing that transportation infrastructure has been “hit hard” and he encouraged the public to stay off the roads.
“Repairing all this damage, it’s going to be a very big job,” he said.
Bill Lawlor, Director of Government Relations for the Canadian Red Cross, said they have established a reception centre in Antigonish.
The Antigonish Town and County Emergency Management Team (EMT) organized a voluntary evacuation centre for the residents of Indian Gardens whose homes were directly impacted by the last year’s flood as a precautionary measure.
“Town staff reviewed all homes that were impacted by the November flood. The homes that flooded are the ones who received the voluntary evacuation notification,” said Shannon Long, Information Officer with the EMT in a press release on Sept. 23. “Staff are delivering notices to residents this afternoon and arrangements for transportation for those who require assistance is being managed by members of the EMT and Antigonish Community Transit.”
The EMT said it reached out to volunteers with the St. Joseph’s Lakeside Community Centre and made arrangements for the evacuation centre to open for 24 hours. They provided cots and supplies for those who chose to evacuate.
“Residents from Indian Gardens are encouraged to pack a small bag of comfort items including a blanket and pillow, as well as any medications required,” said Long. “The shelter will have some food available, however, residents are also encouraged to bring small amounts of food for themselves especially if they have any dietary requirements.”
Antigonish Community Transit provided transportation and residents arriving at the Centre were asked to register with a member from the Red Cross.
As Hurricane Fiona moved into Nova Scotia late Friday afternoon, the Nova Scotia RCMP enabled its Division-wide emergency preparedness measures and contingency plans.
“RCMP officers responded to hundreds of calls across the province, of which the bulk included calls related to wellbeing checks, stranded motorists, downed power lines, downed trees, washed out roads, and debris on roadways,” the RCMP said in a press release issued today. “As of 2:15 p.m. today, we have not received any reports of fatalities nor serious injuries as a result of the storm.
The RCMP said officers and 911 police dispatchers are assisting partner agencies, including the Nova Scotia Emergency Management Office (EMO), which is leading the response to Hurricane Fiona.
During the briefing, Premier Tim Houston confirmed that he requested aid from the federal government.
“Damage assessments are already well underway, and I can tell you our situation right now is where none of us want it to be,” Houston said. “We have been in contact with our federal partners and we have requested military and disaster assistance.”
The premier noted that cellular phone and internet services were also down for many Nova Scotians.
“The sad reality is that the people who need the information that most of the team, most of the folks on this call today can share, are unable to hear it; their phones aren’t working, they don’t have power, or access to the internet,” he stated.
John Lohr, the minister responsible for Nova Scotia’s EMO, said he contacted Bill Blair, the federal Minister of Public Safety requesting Disaster Financial Assistance, “and he’s assured that will be coming very quickly.”
“The magnitude of this storm has just been breathtaking; it’s turned out to be everything that has been predicted, and it’s affected people across the province,” he added.