More than 190 Nova Scotia Power customers without electricity after high winds, rain
Estimated restoration times range from this afternoon until 9 p.m.
Thousands of Nova Scotia Power customers were without electricity Sunday morning after high winds and heavy rain swept the province.
By the mid-afternoon, crews had made major headway and the number of customers still without power had fallen considerably.
As of 4 p.m., there were still eight outages affecting more than 190 customers, according to Nova Scotia Power's outage map.
The number of homes and businesses without power had been steadily rising and peaked at 7,200 around 8:40 a.m.
The outages began early Sunday and most are in the northeastern half of the province. More than 4,000 customers in Cape Breton were without electricity early Sunday.
Estimated restoration times varied between 1-9 p.m.
A public weather alert was issued by Environment Canada Saturday morning, warning that a system from New England was expected to bring southeasterly gusts of up to 90 km/h to parts of the mainland, and up to 100 km/h in Cape Breton.
A Les Suêtes wind warning was also issued for Inverness County, north of Mabou, which brought southeast wind gusts up to 200 km/h. Most weather warnings had ended by late Sunday morning.
On Sunday morning, the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal closed the Canso Causeway to vehicles 2.5 metres or higher due to high winds. It had reopened by 9:20 a.m.
Heavy rain also began falling across the province Saturday evening and continued to fall over the eastern mainland and most of Cape Breton Sunday morning. Rainfall warnings ended for Victoria County and Sydney Metro and Cape Breton County by the early afternoon.