Cleanup from winter storm picks up speed Sunday
Provincial plows are out on the road this morning in P.E.I. following the winter storm that moved through the Maritimes on Saturday.
The P.E.I. government said that it has started to clear snow that's accumulated on the province's roads after poor weather conditions kept its plows from operating on Saturday unless in cases of emergency.
An Environment Canada storm warning in place for all of P.E.I. for most of Saturday afternoon has been lifted.
CBC meteorologist Jay Scotland said some areas saw total snowfall accumulation of between 20 and 40 centimetres, but drifting made it look like more.
"Also, the Island already had a lot of snow on the ground from last week's storm, which contributed to the blowing and drifting snow from this one," Scotland said.
Peak gusts reached 100 km/h.
The province said it could take most of Sunday before everything is cleared.
It urged drivers to stay off the road to allow plows to do their job.
P.E.I. RCMP asked Islanders to stay put Saturday night as snow made some roads impassable.
RCMP say they responded to 31 stranded motorists between 5 p.m. Friday and 8 a.m. Sunday.
A stranded motorist had to wait 20 hours before being rescued by police.
The Confederation Bridge reopened to all traffic on Sunday morning. The bridge had been closed since Friday night.
Power restored
Power is back up in most parts of the Island after as many as over 8,000 Maritime Electric customers had to deal with outages on Saturday.
Maritime Electric spokesperson Kim Griffin said crews were out all night working to restore power, though snow and driving conditions made it difficult for them to access some areas.
"Our trucks were stuck. We needed escorts from plow services and the plow operators in many situations on Saturday were really focused on helping to help us get to communities across the Island," she said.
Private and provincial plow operators helped clear out the roads for the company's crews. Maritime Electric also got assistance from farmers who helped them get into certain areas.
Griffin said the company expects the handful of outages that remain to be resolved Sunday.
Cleanup picks up speed
Mike Berrigan, highway maintenance superintendent at Prince County, said his plow crews got some requests to assist Maritime Electric trucks and some firefighters. But most calls came from EMS.
Berrigan said there were a few stranded vehicles the plows had to get around, but overall the operators didn't see that many on the streets.
He said cleanup was slow at first, but things are coming up "pretty good" now.
"It's a nice and sunny day. There's a little bit of ground drift but it's not causing any problems at this time," he said.
COVID-19 testing sites in Charlottetown, Summerside and Borden-Carleton have delayed opening until at least noon. The County Fair Mall vaccine clinic in Summerside will also open at noon.
