Image: Tara Clow

NB Power crews continue their work this morning to restore electricity across the province.

As of 10:30 am, over 18, 000 customers are still without power, with the majority in the Shediac Cap-Pele areas.

At the height of the outages, there were around 96,000 New Brunswickers in the dark.

Since then, NB Power Spokesperson Dominique Couture says 78, 000 have been restored.

“All NB Power resources and contractors are still working in the field. We currently have 178 line crews in the field. We also have additional resources conducting damage assessments in the province,” said Couture.

She adds those still without power are encouraged to check the NB Power website for the latest restoration time estimates.

“The biggest challenges for power crews were high winds delaying progress and having to remove large trees and debris before being able to make necessary repairs, ” said Couture.

Nova Scotia and PEI suffered much more extensive damage in post-tropical storm Fiona, and it’s expected to be days or even weeks for some to have power restored.

As of 9 am, Nova Scotia Power was still dealing with around 275,000 outages.

Almost all of PEI is still without power, with over 82,000 outages reported by Maritime Electric as of 11 am.

Due to the restoration efforts in New Brunswick, all of NB Power’s distribution crews are currently being utilized, to restore power. But Couture says they have sent two transmission line crews to other provinces in need.