The post-tropical cyclone Fiona swept through Atlantic Canada on Saturday, and the powerful storm left a path of destruction in its wake.
Although Fiona turned into a post-tropical storm late Friday, it still managed to maintain hurricane-strength winds when it hit the region on Saturday. The Canadian Hurricane Centre on Saturday said that Fiona had the lowest pressure ever recorded for a storm making landfall in Canada, and forecasters had already warned that it could be one of the most powerful storms to ever hit the nation.
In the town of Channel-Port aux Basques in Newfoundland, the storm claimed the life of at least one person – a 73-yead-old woman.
"The woman was last seen inside (her) residence just moments before a wave struck the home, tearing away a portion of the basement," police said.
The town itself was one of the most devastated by Fiona. Reuters reported that over 20 homes were destroyed, leaving more than 200 people in need of shelter. Some homes were flooded, but others were washed away along with the floodwater. Port aux Basques Mayor Brian Button stated that the cost of the damages “is in the millions [of dollars].”
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of customers in Nova Scotia were without power on Sunday following the storm. According to Nova Scotia Power president Peter Gregg, the utility company is aware that "there will be customers who face outages for multiple days" due to the extent of the damage of the storm.
Two municipalities in the island of Cape Breton, NS had declared a state of emergency, CBC News said. Some 200 people were forced to leave their homes after the properties were battered by the storm; the evacuees have been moved to the Coast Guard College and the Membertou Trade and Convention Centre where temporary comfort centres have been established.
In Prince Edward Island, the storm managed to generate winds with speeds of 150 km/h and cause rainfall of up to 100 millimetres. At one point during the storm, about 95% of Maritime Electric customers were without power.
Roads were inundated and a bridge was destroyed in New Brunswick, while tens of thousands of households experienced power outages. According to Bill Hogan, NB’s public safety minister, it would take some time to calculate the damage caused by Fiona, noting that there was a “significant” amount of coast erosion and damage to infrastructure along the east coast of NB.
CBC News reported that across the four Atlantic provinces, more than 285,000 customers are still without power as of Sunday.
In an advisory released ahead of the storm, Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) Atlantic vice president Amanda Dean warned that “even a significantly weakened hurricane can carry winds strong enough to cause widespread destruction." The IBC offered homeowners in the affected regions reminders that they can contact their insurance representatives to learn more about which property damages are covered by insurance.
