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.
She said she’ll be contacting the province to assess the damage and ask for emergency funding.
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 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 Municipality is asking people to use alternate routes until further notice.