Hydro-Québec said the Churchill Falls station experienced a sudden interruption Tuesday, which triggered protection mechanisms that responded by cutting power.
This long weekend is feeling much longer for thousands of people who are still without power across the Island of Montreal. Hydro-Québec confirmed that as of Sunday, April 9 at 10:30 a.m., nearly 80,000 residents across Montreal do not have any power.
It has been a rough few days since the ice storm struck Quebec, leaving millions of people without power across Montreal and many other regions across Quebec. In the first 48 hours, Hydro-Québec said they have restored power to over 800,000 customers and plan on restoring power to a million customers by the end of the weekend.
While Hydro-Québec crews are busy restoring power lines, Hydro-Québec social media managers have been hard at work, too. They've responded to hundreds of tweets from customers since the April 5 freezing rain storm. Most of those responses consist of updates or links to additional resources. They've also thanked customers for their patience and expressed gratitude for messages of encouragement. But, as Narcity Québec reports, Hydro's social media team also famously doesn't hesitate to engage with naysayers, often throwing back just as much sass and passive aggression as aggrieved customers lob their way. The result might be humiliating for rude Twitter users, but it's excellent entertainment for everyone else waiting in the dark.
Hydro-Québec is scrambling to restore power to over 1 million customers provincewide after Wednesday's freezing rain storm felled trees and brought down power lines. In Montreal alone, there were 483,875 customers without electricity as of 7 a.m. Thursday.