Hydro-Québec continues to repair the outages caused by high winds
Posted March 18, 2026 6:50 am.
Last Updated March 18, 2026 12:38 pm.
Hydro-Québec had warned that some of its customers would have to spend Tuesday night into Wednesday without power, and this was the case for more than 30,000 of them. Despite this, the number of addresses affected by the outage continues to decrease.
Early Wednesday, approximately 35,000 homes across the province remained without power, down from 50,000 late Tuesday night. The peak, reached Tuesday morning, was around 320,000 addresses.
Around 12:30 p.m., about 20,942 Hydro-Québec customers were without power, 357 in Montreal, 3,403 in Laval, 7,824 in Montérégie, and 1,079 in Laurentians.
The outages were caused by branches and trees that fell onto the power grid during Tuesday’s strong winds. Some gusts exceeded 100 km/h in some areas, according to Environment Canada.
Hydro-Québec had indicated that the gusts had damaged some of its equipment, complicating the task of its teams to repair some outages.
The Montérégie region remained the most affected on Wednesday morning, with just over 10,000 customers without power. Approximately 8,000 were without power in the Laurentides-Lanaudière region.
The other outages were mostly located in Bas-Saint-Laurent, Capitale-Nationale, Centre-du-Québec, Chaudière-Appalaches, Laval and Montreal.
According to Environment Canada’s forecast, Wednesday is shaping up to be a beautiful day in most regions of Quebec, but cold weather is expected.
In Quebec City, the wind chill reached minus-21 C before dawn, while it felt like minus-18 C at the same time in Montreal.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
