NS Power says fixing rural outages is a top priority

People who live in rural areas of Cape Breton — and those elected to represent them — have long been fed up with frequent power outages.

People who live in rural areas of Cape Breton — and those elected to represent them — have long been fed up with frequent power outages.

"(If) we have wind gusts of 50 kilometers an hour, the power is out,” said Cyril MacDonald, District 3 councilor for the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM).

"Since Fiona, residents have been losing their power (an average) of once a month — and sometimes for hours or days at a time,” said James Edwards, the municipality’s Deputy Mayor.

On Tuesday, representatives from Nova Scotia Power told a packed gallery at CBRM council they will spend more money to address the issue.

"The money we are increasing rates on is definitely going back into reliability”, said Matt Drover, the utility’s storm lead.

Drover said they'll spend $45 million this year to remove trees from power lines — up from $20-25 million in previous years for removing vegetation.

"Really focusing on storm-hardening our system, making sure that any trees that were weakened during large hurricanes like Fiona have been removed from our power lines,” Drover said.