Fiona knocks out power with strong winds in Atlantic Canada

A hurricane watch was issued for coastal expanses of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland

Fiona knocked out power to more than 5,00,000 customers in Atlantic Canada on Saturday, damaging homes with strong winds and rain as it made landfall as a big, powerful post-tropical cyclone.

Fiona transformed from a hurricane into a post-tropical storm late Friday, but meteorologists cautioned that it still could have hurricane-strength winds and would bring drenching rains and huge waves.

More than 4,15,000 Nova Scotia Power customers — about 80% of the province of almost 1 million — were affected by outages on Saturday morning.

Over 82,000 customers in the province of Prince Edward Island were also without power, while NB Power in New Brunswick reported 44,329 were without electricity.

The fast-moving Fiona made Nova Scotia landfall before dawn Saturday, with its power down from the Category 4 strength it had early on Friday when passing by Bermuda, though officials there reported no serious damage.

The Canadian Hurricane Centre tweeted early on Saturday that Fiona has the lowest pressure ever recorded for a storm making landfall in Canada. Forecasters had warned it could be the one of the most powerful storms to hit the country.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Newfoundland said the town of Port aux Basques, in Newfoundland is in a state of emergency as authorities deal with with multiple electrical fires and residential flooding.