Power restored in most Quebec homes after widespread outages Thursday, while 9,000 remained without electricity

Most of the Quebec households that were still without power should have their electricity restored by Friday, according to Premier François Legault and Hydro-Québec.

Earlier, Legault had said most homes should have restored to 95 per cent of homes by 11 p.m. Thursday.

“I understand that some people have been without power for several hours,” but “the vast majority of power outages should be resolved by 11 p.m. tonight,” Legault said at a press conference Thursday afternoon.

“I would ask Quebecers who are able to stay home to do so, and if they must go out, to be careful, because some roads are still icy.”

About 198,000 homes were without electricity across Quebec Thursday morning as an ice storm moved through several regions.

It was a difficult day for Outremont residents like Malika Benfriha, who was among the thousands of Montrealers without electricity Thursday.

“First of all, with my kids, it was very, very hard this morning because we have a baby here and to give him something hot to eat, to give them something for the lunch, it was difficult today,” Benfriha explained.

“Maybe I’m gonna go to a friend of mine this evening if the electricity don’t come back.”

Around 6 a.m., roughly 33,972 customers were without power in Montreal. Outages were highest in Montérégie, where about 80,540 addresses were affected.

“This morning when I got up, there was no heating,” said Outremont’s Benoit Roy. “It’s cold in the house right now. It’s an old house that’s poorly insulated, so it’s cold now. It’s very difficult.”

“I think they are supposed to know this problem could happen,” added Benfriha. “So they are used to it. How could we be at this point, like today in 2026? I mean, it’s surprising for me.”

As of 10:15 a.m., there were 24,250 customers without power in Montreal. That dropped to 12,459 an hour later.

By 1 p.m., outages were affecting approximately 10,000 homes in Montreal and 2,000 in Laval.

By late afternoon, around 5 p.m., there were about 52,800 Quebec households without power, including 2,000 in Montreal.

By 7 p.m., it was just over 30,000 homes without power across the province.

Just after 8:30 p.m., the tally of total power outages was above 15,700.

Around 9:36 p.m., about 10,591 homes were without power.

After midnight, 8,927 addresses still didn’t have electricity.

“The response time has been there,” said Jim Beis, Montreal’s executive committee member responsible for security and prevention. “We know that the crews have been on the ground. They’ve been trying to find the solutions for those remaining, but at the same time, we also expect them to be vigilant because the winds have picked up and will continue throughout the afternoon and evening. And that undoubtedly will bring down some branches and probably bring some other power outages as we go forward.”

Premier Legault also warned that strong winds could cause tree branches to fall on power lines and lead to further outages in some areas.

“We still think that we should be able to reduce the number of houses without electricity,” he said in the afternoon.

Legault addressed the effort by Hydro-Québec to restore electricity; he says 2,000 employees were involved. Freezing rain coating power lines and trees across parts of southern Quebec creates difficult conditions for crews working to restore service.

Hydro-Québec confirmed that many of the power outages were not only caused by the freezing rain, but also wind. They added that this most recent freezing rainstorm was different than the major one that hit Montreal in April 2023.

“It’s completely different,” said the Crown utility’s president and CEO. “In 2023, the focus of the storm was in Montreal. In Montreal, we have big trees that were affected by the storm at that point. So we had big trees in the roads, in the streets, on cars.

“Now we got less damage. So it’s easier for us to do the restoration for our clients. So it’s going to be faster this time.”

While many were without electricity in Quebec, Urgences-santé says it they did not encounter an increased number of falls or accidents during the recent freezing rain in Montreal or Laval.

Some schools remain closed

In Montreal, the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) light rail service was interrupted between Brossard and Central Station during the morning rush hour due to an “exceptional accumulation of freezing rain on the overhead power lines on a portion of the network.” Service was back to normal by late morning.

As for schools, the situation varied greatly across the province.

While some school boards reopened their schools, others chose to keep them closed for a second consecutive day, citing difficult road conditions and power outages.

Even though the weather appears to have been less severe than expected, the premier believes the school service centres that decided to close schools on Wednesday and Thursday made the right choice.

“I believe it was the right decision to make, but we let each service centre make its own decision,” said Legault.

At the Montreal and Quebec City airports, where dozens of flights were cancelled on Wednesday, the situation had largely returned to normal by Thursday.

Icy conditions persist

After two days of icy weather that contributed to power outages across the area, colder temperatures and lingering slippery conditions are expected to continue as the week goes on.

“We recorded about 21 millimetres of rain overnight,” said Giselle Dookhie, warning and preparedness meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.

That will be followed by some mild temperatures for the weekend.

Friday will be mostly sunny early, with increasing cloudiness later in the day and a high near 0 C. Snow is expected Friday night and will continue into Saturday, when temperatures reach about +1 C before clearing overnight.

“Another system could bring rain and snow to the region from Friday evening into Saturday, with around five centimetres of accumulation possible, potentially a bit higher in some areas,” said Dookhie.

Cloudy skies and a chance of flurries return Sunday, with more snow possible overnight.

“On Sunday, temperatures are expected to warm as we move into the warmer sector of that system,” said Dookhie.

A major warm-up arrives Monday, bringing periods of rain and a high near 13 C.

“By Monday evening, we could see rain with the possibility of thunderstorms,” warned Dookhie.

–With files from La Presse Canadienne