{"id":297181,"date":"2025-11-21T08:53:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T08:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/297181\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T08:53:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T08:53:13","slug":"hydro-quebec-shutting-power-to-west-island-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/297181\/","title":{"rendered":"Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec shutting power to West Island this weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec is turning off the lights for Montreal residents and businesses in the West Island.<\/p>\n

Some 64,000 customers will be left in the dark from Friday at 9 p.m. to Saturday at 6 a.m.<\/p>\n

The utility says the overnight work is essential to maintaining the electrical grid ahead of winter, and to avoid the kind of surprise failures that lead to much longer, unplanned outages.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are not going to come. So I\u2019m going to lose Ubers, everything,\u201d said Elisa Giambattista, the owner of Kojax Souflaki in Dollard-des-Ormeaux.<\/p>\n

Giambattista says she only got word of the outage after receiving a notice from Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec earlier this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI literally called yesterday Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec to make sure this was not a joke,\u201d she told CityNews.<\/p>\n

She says the outage will force her to close two hours early \u2014 costing her up to $900 in sales.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to be careful with my meats,\u201d Giambattista said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI might take some home and make sure they\u2019re not going to go bad or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Elisa Giambattista, the owner of Kojax Souflaki in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, prepares a gyro. (Zachary Cheung, CityNews)<\/p>\n

Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s maintenance work will take place at the Des Sources substation in DDO.<\/p>\n

Customers in DDO, Dorval, \u00cele-Bizard\u2013Sainte-Genevi\u00e8ve, Kirkland, Pierrefonds-Roxboro, Pointe-Claire and Saint-Laurent are expected to lose power.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might be a good idea for people to preheat the house if they want to,\u201d recommended Cendrix Bouchard, a Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec spokesperson.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re using secondary heating devices that need to be used outside, make sure you do so outside, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giambattista isn\u2019t the only one caught off guard. Her next-door neighbour Dan Poncharem, the owner of Quesada Burritos & Tacos, says he wasn\u2019t aware until she told him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had no idea,\u201d Giambattista said. \u201cI had to tell him yesterday, the day before, and he says, \u2018what are you talking about?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Elisa Giambattista, the owner of Kojax Souflaki in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, says she thought the outage was a joke. (Zachary Cheung, CityNews)<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I didn\u2019t get any call, any message,\u201d Poncharem confirmed. \u201cI don\u2019t know because even I asked employees, \u2018did I (get a) call?\u2019 No. So we didn\u2019t get nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the number of fresh veggies and sauces his restaurant keeps on hand, Poncharem worries ingredients won\u2019t survive the whole night without power.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find 10 hours is too long,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we have a restaurant, what are we going to do? So I have no plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Dan Poncharem, the owner of Quesada Burritos & Tacos in Dollard-des-Ormeaux. (Zachary Cheung, CityNews)<\/p>\n

As for residents, many are preparing for a night without heat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s old people in my house,\u201d one West Island resident said. \u201cI have a sleep apnea machine, and Hydro closes it when it\u2019s minus something. I mean, can\u2019t they do this in the fall?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy only fear is that they might not restore the power by six o\u2019clock,\u201d added another.<\/p>\n

Others are set on taking the outage in stride.<\/p>\n

\u201cI decided to go to a nine o\u2019clock movie and then go home prepared with candles and flashlights to sleep. No big deal,\u201d one person said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec is turning off the lights for Montreal residents and businesses in the West Island. Some 64,000 customers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-297181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}