Eastern Weekend Storm Damage To Inverness County Roads In Nova Scotia Will Take Weeks To Repair, Says Deputy Warden

Deputy Warden Bonny MacIsaac says nine roads were washed out during Easter weekend ice storm

CBC News · Posted: Apr 05, 2021 4:42 PM AT | Last Updated: April 5

Broken tree branches are seen along Main Street in Inverness on April 5, 2021 after an ice storm over Easter weekend. (Tom Ayers/CBC)

Clean-up crews have worked around the clock in Cape Breton, N.S., as the weekend ice storm washed out roads and brought down trees and power lines, but repairs in the Inverness area are expected to take a while.

"We have a disaster on our hands here. It's a mess," said Bonny MacIsaac, the deputy warden of Inverness.

MacIsaac spent the weekend coordinating the effort in her community, which was hit particularly hard. She said some people had to drive 30 minutes to find an open gas station to help fuel their generators.

"It's going to take weeks for some of these roads to be fixed to where they need to be."

While emergency workers were focusing on roads and restoring power, the fire department auxiliary got to work making sure everyone had food and a warm place to go on Sunday.

Volunteer cooks at comfort centre

Joan MacIsaac and three others spent hours on their feet cooking for 70 families at a comfort centre, even though she didn't have power in her own home for more than 24 hours.

"After the last ice storm, we knew that people had a real need for going somewhere safe to get warm and have something hot," she said.

"Some people came back a second time for supper. We sent a lot of food out, too."

Bonny MacIsaac said people have been working day and night to clean up the trees and reconnect the power.

Ice and freezing rain caused trees and power poles to freeze and snap in parts of Cape Breton on Sunday. (Submitted by Alyssa Basker)

"A lot of these roads have businesses on them and it's been super challenging in the last year as you know with COVID. Here they are, barely hanging on, and it's quite a deterrent if you don't have a road that's fit to be travelled on."

It was a frustrating setback for the community. Last weekend, Inverness had several washouts from flooding. Those roads had just been fixed when the Easter storm hit.

"Now it's like every rain storm coming, are we still going to be going backwards instead of forwards because we can't get things fixed the way they should be fixed?" she said. 

Money for repairs

MacIsaac said she's now going to turn her efforts toward asking the provincial government for help. She's already been in touch with the Emergency Management Office and is working on a list of things she wants repaired.

She believes much of the damage was preventable.

Trees are seen majorly damaged at this house on the corner of Route 19 in Cape Breton near the St. John's United Church on April 5, 2021 after a weekend ice storm. (Tom Ayers/CBC)

"The last two weekends we've had flooding in certain areas because of overgrown ditches, clogged culverts. That's all about the budgets that were given here from the department of highways."

Nova Scotia's Department of Transportation said it will respond to MacIsaac's concerns on Tuesday. She said she'll be speaking out until something gets done to prevent more damage in her community.

Cape Breton Bears Brunt Of Easter Weekend Freezing Rain Storm In Nova Scotia

Comfort station set up in Inverness as several roads in Cape Breton washed out, impassable

Brooklyn Currie · CBC News · Posted: Apr 04, 2021 10:51 AM AT | Last Updated: April 4

Many roads in Cape Breton were made impassable by downed trees, downed power lines, and flooding as freezing rain and ice pellets swept through the province on Sunday. (Submitted by Alyssa Basker)

With several washed-out roads and widespread power outages, Cape Breton has taken the brunt of a freezing rain storm that swept through the province Saturday night and into Sunday.

"It's significant damage, for sure," said Bonnie MacIsaac, deputy warden of the Municipality of the County of Inverness. "We have a lot of trees down."

Several roads are washed out in the area from heavy rain and melting snow. MacIsaac said nine roads in the area were already in rough shape.

"Some of these were just barely made passable in the last week, and here we are set back by this," she said.

Ice and freezing rain caused trees and power poles to freeze and snap in parts of Cape Breton on Sunday. (Submitted by Alyssa Basker)

She said she'll be contacting the province to assess the damage and ask for emergency funding.

"All the trees froze, power lines, everything was totally frozen," said Alyssa Basker, who lives in Inverness. "Trees were snapping off, power poles were breaking."

"In our backyard, our tree is in pieces on the ground," she said. "There's some roads that were full of trees, all over the road. Even our basement flooded. We had a foot of water in it."

Basker's household has been without power since 9 p.m. Saturday night. She said the estimated restoration time is about 6 p.m. Sunday, but with strong winds expected throughout the evening she's worried about further damage.

Catalone Gut Road is one of many roads in Cape Breton washed out by this weekend's storm. (Nicole MacLennan/CBC)

The Inverness Volunteer Fire Department opened its fire hall as a comfort centre for people to get food, a warm drink, and a chance to charge their devices.

Most of Inverness County remains without power. Nova Scotia Power's outage map says restoration in most areas is expected by 10 p.m..

In Cape Breton County, several roads in the Sydney have been closed since Saturday evening due to flooding from heavy rain.

Around 9:30 a.m. Sunday, the Louisburg-Main-à-Dieu Rd. was washed out and is closed. The Cape Breton Regional Municipality is asking people to use alternate routes until further notice.

Rainfall warnings lifted

Rainfall warnings across the province were lifted around 3:30 p.m. on Sunday.

A Les Suêtes wind warning is in effect for Inverness County, with maximum gusts of 90 km/h expected to start weakening in the evening.

Environment Canada expected between 30-80 millimetres of rain to fall Saturday and into Sunday, which has also caused flooding in low-lying areas.

Freezing rain warnings had been in effect in parts of the province throughout the morning. They ended around 2 p.m.

Thousands without power

Thousands of NSP customers woke up on Easter Sunday without electricity. At its peak, there were as many as 13,900 outages across the province Sunday morning.

Crews were still dealing with outages into the evening, with more than 6,500 customers still in the dark as of 5:30 p.m., according to the utility's outage map.

Most of the outages were located along the coast of Cape Breton's Inverness County, as well as in Antigonish and Guysborough counties.