By Gordon Lambie
Strong winds overnight left thousands without power in the Eastern Townships on Monday morning. As of 9:30 a.m. Hydro Quebec was reporting over 3,000 customers experiencing outages in pockets across the region, some of whom had been in the dark since Sunday evening.
According to a representative of Hydro-Quebec, the outages were concentrated in the Memphremagog, Granit, and Haute-Saint-Francois MRCs, and were largely as a result of damage from the wind gusts that carried on through the day on Monday. Isolated outages could also be found throughout other parts of the region, largely in areas between the U.S. border and Highway 10.
Hydro Sherbrooke representative Daniel Moreau said that he was unaware of any major issues within the city.
At 9 a.m. the Eastern Townships office of the transport ministry announced the closure of route 143 near Waterville due to a fallen tree. The road remained closed until close to 1 p.m.
