36,000 without power on P.E.I. Friday morning

CBC P.E.I. continues to focus on the aftermath of Fiona. If your data or internet is limited, click here for the CBC Lite version of the P.E.I. site.

About 46 per cent of Maritime Electric customers, P.E.I.'s main utility, are still without power on the morning of the seventh day following post-tropical storm Fiona.

Fiona hit Atlantic Canada last Saturday, and was particularly devastating for Cape Breton, Newfoundland, and P.E.I. Virtually everyone on the Island was without electricity after the storm had passed.

Friday morning, that number was about 36,000 customers. Maritime Electric spokesperson Kim Griffin said the weather forecast looks great for continued work.

"I'm just so optimistic when I hear the weather," she said.

"This is perfect weather for our crews all out across P.E.I. to work on our Fiona restoration efforts."

Work to restore power will continue over the weekend. By the end of day Monday, the utility expects to have all communities and neighbourhoods restored, but some small pockets and individual outages will remain.

Those individual outages include 895 customers who have mast damage that will need to be repaired by private contractors.

On Thursday the utility had 160 line crews out, many of them from out of province. Another 40 are expected to arrive and start working in the field Friday. Some have come from as far away as Ontario.

It's a big effort for the company, said Griffin, which normally only has about 25 crews on the road.

"As new crews come in they're always paired with someone from P.E.I. so that they know our system but also know where they're going," she said.

Access P.E.I. centres will remain open during the holiday Friday and on Saturday to assist Islanders who still don't have electricity.

Most schools will reopen Monday, but six are too damaged to take in students.

Those schools are École Évangéline, Queen Charlotte Intermediate, Cardigan Consolidated, East Wiltshire Intermediate, West Royalty Elementary and Westwood Primary.