Nova Scotia Power to activate Emergency Operations Centre at noon

With freezing rain in the forecast, Nova Scotia Power will be activating its Emergency Operations Centre at noon Thursday.

Snow is expected to start falling late Thursday morning, then switch to freezing rain this evening.

Areas near the coastline could see rain.

Environment Canada has issued a freezing rain warning and a rainfall warning for the Halifax area.

Nova Scotia Power's storm lead Matt Drover says his crews are keeping a close eye on the storm.

“With a prolonged period of mixed precipitation in the forecast, which can change with even minor temperature fluctuations, we are making preparations accordingly,” he said.

“We're staffing up our Customer Care Centre and moving crews into position throughout the province to ensure we can respond as needed for our customers.”

Restoration Priorities 

If there are outages, Nova Scotia Power says crews will restore power as soon as conditions are safe. 

They will prioritize critical services, like hospitals, before starting work in other areas.

Larger outages on transmission lines and in substations are restored before smaller outages to get electricity flowing to the greatest number of customers.

Customer Safety

Nova Scotia Power recommends the following: 

• Monitoring local weather forecasts. 
• Having an emergency kit that includes flashlights, a battery-powered radio and fresh water. 
• Charging electronic devices. 
• If you lose power, turn off and unplug electrical equipment, such as televisions and computers to prevent damage when power is restored. 
• Visit www.nspower.ca/stormready for a full list of safety and storm preparedness tips. 

Outage Information 

If your electricity goes out, you can report it and monitor the latest estimated times of restoration (ETRs) through the Nova Scotia Power outage map, or by calling 1-877-428-6004.

“Initial ETRs are based on past storms of similar size,” said the utility in a news release. “We update ETRs once our teams have assessed damage.”