But Nova Scotia was hit particularly hard by the outages, with almost 250,000 homes and businesses — half of Nova Scotia Power’s customers — without electricity at one point before noon. Nova Scotia Power CEO Karen Hutt said the remaining three lines could have handled the load, but the sagging wires went offline when they started touching each other. The problem was compounded shortly afterwards when NB Power was hit by an outage in Memramcook, N.B., where a transmission line links New Brunswick with Nova Scotia. The second outage doubled the number of Nova Scotia Power customers without electricity, bringing the total to over 200,000. Schools were closed and ferry service between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia was cancelled, and the Confederation Bridge between P.E.I.

Source: National Post November 29, 2018 11:51 UTC