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<\/p>\n\u201cI understand that some people have been without power for several hours. It\u2019s difficult, but at the same time, I can assure you that Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec is doing everything possible to resolve this as quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day, Louis-Olivier Batty, a spokesperson for Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec, said the storm did not cause serious widespread damage to equipment. \u201cSo that\u2019s the good news: there\u2019s a lot of damage, but it\u2019s fairly easy to repair.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the most part, the storm was not as bad as forecast. A spokesperson for the Urgences-Sant\u00e9 ambulance service said they had received fewer 911 calls than anticipated. Genevi\u00e8ve Poirier, operations chief, said there were no spikes in calls compared to an average day, which she said suggested people followed calls by officials to stay off the roads.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe directives bore fruit because people stayed home,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Meteorologists had warned the system could resemble the major ice storm that hit parts of southern Quebec and eastern Ontario in April 2023, when some areas \u2014 including Montreal \u2014 received about 30 millimetres of freezing rain, disrupting travel and knocking out power for more than a million people in the two provinces.<\/p>\n
Environment Canada lifted all its freezing rain warnings for southwestern Quebec on Thursday. In a preliminary summary from 11 a.m., the federal weather agency said Quebec\u2019s Outaouais region received between 20 and 30 millimetres of freezing rain, Montreal had 20, the Laurentians received between 15 and 20,and Quebec City saw 10 to 15 millimetres.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Montreal and in Quebec, it was a little bit less freezing rain because it was a little bit colder than expected,\u201d said Simon Legault, a meteorologist with Environment Canada. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo that\u2019s a bit of what happened yesterday: less freezing rain, more ice pellets, but the amounts of precipitation was about the same forecasted, but the type of precipitation was a little bit different.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patrick Murphy, a Plateau Mont-Royal resident, said he was worried he would lose electricity on Wednesday \u201cwith a baby in the household, but we didn\u2019t lose power,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cWe got lucky but it\u2019s good to be prudent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Justine Kronovsek was waiting for her husband outside the Plateau\u2019s Laurier metro station after learning her child\u2019s daycare was closed because of flooding and power outages. But she said she was happy her home didn\u2019t lose power.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were expecting (an outage) but it was pretty smooth,\u201d Kronovsek said. \u201cI think everyone is so traumatized from what happened three years ago so it\u2019s better to prepare for the worst: three years ago it was a mess.\u201d <\/p>\n
On Montreal\u2019s South Shore, Popy Spanos\u2019s regular 12-kilometre walk was hindered by icy patches. The Brossard resident said she was lucky not to lose power, as both her daughters who live in the same neighbourhood did. \u201cI don\u2019t want to fall, I\u2019m too old for that now,\u201d Spanos said.<\/p>\n
Numerous flights were cancelled in Montreal and Quebec City on Wednesday, but airport operations returned largely to normal Thursday. Classes were cancelled across southern Quebec on Wednesday, and while some schools reopened Thursday, many stayed closed for a second day.<\/p>\n
The icy conditions also halted transit services on Thursday morning on some stations of the Montreal area\u2019s REM light-rail network, on the link between Brossard and Central Station. That same segment was closed late Wednesday afternoon after freezing rain hit.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn episode of intense freezing rain, localized on the South Shore and the Champlain Bridge, led to an exceptional accumulation of ice on the overhead power lines, causing a complete shutdown of service between Brossard and Central Station,\u201d the REM\u2019s operator, Pulsar, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Preventive measures were ineffective and crews began manually de-icing the overheard power lines along 15 kilometres of track. That operation began Wednesday and took several hours. Service resumed gradually just before 9 a.m. Thursday.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 12, 2026.<\/p>\n
\u2014 with files from Mathieu Paquette and St\u00e9phane Blais in Montreal.<\/p>\n
Erika Morris and Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI understand that some people have been without power for several hours. It\u2019s difficult, but at the same…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-533160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533160","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=533160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}