‘A wild ride’: powerful storm Fiona hammers Canada’s east coast, leaving thousands without power
- Storm downgraded to Post-Tropical Cyclone Fiona, now in Gulf of St. Lawrence after racing through Nova Scotia, US National Hurricane Centre says
- At least 500,000 people in Nova Scotia lost electricity, with region also experiencing spotty mobile phone service, multiple road closures
Two women were swept into the ocean in Newfoundland, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police reported. One was rescued, but the other is still missing.
Mayor Brian Button of Channel-Port aux Basques, at the southwestern tip of Newfoundland, told CBC News that the scene there was one of “total devastation,” adding, “this has become bigger, and worse, than we had imagined.”
Rene Roy, a newspaper editor in Channel-Port aux Basques, said, “These are the strongest winds anyone in the community has ever seen. Several houses have been washed into the sea.”
As of midday, some 500,000 homes were left without power across the region as the storm pummelled a wide area, felling countless trees and ripping roofs from buildings.
“The power lines are down everywhere,” Erica Fleck, assistant chief of Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency, told CBC. “It’s not safe to be on the roads.”
“Trees have come down on homes, trees have come down on cars, there’s buildings that have collapsed,” Fire Chief Lloyd MacIntosh in the Nova Scotia town of North Sydney told CBC.