{"id":335389,"date":"2026-03-12T12:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T12:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/335389\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T12:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T12:58:08","slug":"hundreds-of-thousands-without-power-more-school-closures-in-quebec-following-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/335389\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds of thousands without power, more school closures in Quebec following storm"},"content":{"rendered":"

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More than 200,000 Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec customers woke up to homes with no electricity Thursday morning, after freezing rain and high winds brought down power lines overnight. <\/p>\n

While the province avoided the worst of the anticipated ice storm<\/a>, some schools in southern Quebec remained closed for a second day due to poor road conditions and power outages.<\/p>\n

The Lester B. Pearson School Board, the New Frontiers School Board and the Centre de services scolaire des Patriotes are closed again Thursday. <\/p>\n

The English Montreal School Board, the Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board and the Centre de services scolaire de Montr\u00e9al all opted to reopen, though a handful of schools in select areas and those without power will remain closed Thursday.<\/p>\n

Montreal and the Mont\u00e9r\u00e9gie were among those hardest hit by the outages, with more than 32,000 addresses affected in Montreal and more than 80,000 in the Mont\u00e9r\u00e9gie as of 8 am Thursday.<\/p>\n

“Overnight, we had an increase in the number of addresses without power in Quebec,” said Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec spokesperson Cendrix Bouchard. <\/p>\n

The public utility’s 550 teams will be deployed in full force this morning, he said, but stressed that difficult conditions could make it slower to restore service in some areas.<\/p>\n

“Just getting to an outage will take longer than usual,” Bouchard said.<\/p>\n

“The roads are slippery for everybody, and we always remind the workers to always stay safe.”<\/p>\n

Simon Legault, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, told CBC Montreal’s Daybreak that high winds today could lead to further power outages. He also said temperatures are expected to drop, which could make for slippery roads and sidewalks. <\/p>\n

REM down in Montreal<\/p>\n

Service disruptions on Montreal’s light-rail network, the REM, also continued Thursday morning between the Gare-Centrale and Brossard stations due to the accumulation of ice. <\/p>\n

In a news release<\/a>, the REM’s operator said it hopes to get that line partially running \u2014 every 35 minutes \u2014 during the day on Thursday, but that it’s unclear when service will return to normal.<\/p>\n

Shuttle buses are in place in the meantime on the South Shore and Nuns’ Island. <\/p>\n

Crews were out Thursday morning to try to knock the ice off the cables of the REM manually. <\/p>\n

Trains are still running, though, between Deux-Montagnes and the Gare Centrale.<\/p>\n

\"peoplePeople wait for a shuttle bus after part of the REM was shut down due to ice buildup. (Simon-Marc Charron\/Radio-Canada)Difficult road conditions in regions<\/p>\n

While Montreal and the surrounding area was hit with freezing rain, other parts of the province saw a mix of snow and ice pellets. <\/p>\n

A snowfall warning remained in effect Thursday for Baie-Comeau and Sept-\u00celes, where up to 40 centimetres of snow is expected to fall by Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Transport Quebec says road conditions are particularly bad in the C\u00f4te-Nord and Gasp\u00e9 regions. Spokesperson Sarah Bensadoun says parts of Route 132 and Route 138 are closed to trucks today because of safety issues. <\/p>\n

Several schools in the Quebec City area also remained closed Thursday morning, though some daycare services were open. <\/p>\n

WATCH | Tips on how to prepare for extreme weather:\"\"<\/p>\n

Extreme weather event on its way? Here\u2019s how to prepare<\/p>\n

Experts weigh in with safety tips to stay safe and protect your property, food, devices and vehicles during adverse weather events in Quebec.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-335389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}