80,000 Montrealers without power: the reliability of the Hydro-Québec network called into question
The head office of Hydro-Québec.
More than 110,000 Quebecers remain without electricity Sunday morning, four days after the passage of the ice storm which paralyzed a large part of the Hydro-Québec network. In Montreal, the most affected region, around 80,000 households are still waiting to be connected.
The other regions most affected are the Outaouais, where nearly 14,000 subscribers are without power, followed by Montérégie (13,000), Laval (7,000) and the Laurentians (1,000).
A situation that could have been avoided?
As service restoration times stretch and impatience and frustration mount among citizens, a question arises: could the present situation have been avoided with better preparation?
Guest on the showFacts FirstOn Saturday on the airwaves of ICI Première, the analyst at the group of environmental organizations in energy Jean-Pierre Finet, fired an arrow at the place of Hydro-Québec and criticized the company on its management of the maintenance of the network .
“Hydro-Québec, its job is to mitigate risks and damages when events such as this occur. This is, among other things, to do better maintenance of the vegetation,” he said, reports Radio-Canada.
Jean-Pierre Finet believes that Hydro-Québec has fallen behind somewhat in recent years and that the situation “perhaps should not have been so damaging”.
A statement supported by the recent criticisms of the Auditor General of Quebec regarding the reliability of the Hydro-Quebec network, in a report tabled in the Blue Room last December, according to Radio-Canada.
Also guest on the show Facts FirstOn Saturday, the director of communications for Hydro-Quebec, Marc-André Pouliot, conceded that the energy supplier was falling behind.
“Yes, we are late. The sinews of war in an event like this is pruning. We are late, but we are in action”, he defended himself.
Reconnection operations continue
The teams of the state-owned company are working on the ground to reconnect customers who begin their fifth day without electricity, this Easter weekend. Sunday morning, during a press briefing, Hydro-Québec assured that all subscribers would find power by Monday evening.
“It may seem like the cadence is slowing down, which it isn’t. We are really doing everything we can to restore as quickly as possible, ”said the vice-president of operations and maintenance at Hydro-Québec, Régis Tellier.
