Despite warnings and advisories that started as early as the middle of last week, the dangerously large amount of freezing rain and high winds forecast for the Eastern Townships on Saturday night came mainly as regular rain to Townshippers east of Waterloo. That’s not to say, however, that the ice did not come. On Sunday morning Hydro Quebec’s outage map traced a diagonal line northeast along the edge of the region from Saint-Armand to Danville, with the most serious concentration of blackouts in the Granby area. More than 100,000 clients in the Monteregie region were listed as being without power. Over the course of the day that number shrank significantly, but thousands were still without power across the province as of press time. In the Estrie administrative region, ice was most concentrated in the Val-Saint-Francois MRC. Even if those east of Orford were not hit by significant freezing rain, the precipitation received was enough to make several rivers rise. The Eaton River in Cookshire, in particular, was on flood alert on Sunday morning. See full story in the Monday, Jan. 13 edition of The Record.
