High water, power failures plague Maritimes

[SIZE="3"]A winter storm pummelled the Maritimes Saturday, knocking out power to thousands of homes and leaving storm surge damage in its wake.

[B]At least one coastal New Brunswick town was forced to declare a state of emergency due to flooding and evacuated some residents by boats and tractors.[/B]

The heavy snowfall, freezing rain, rain and high winds also wreaked havoc on travel, making roads treacherous and causing flight cancellations and delays.

And the storm is expected to continue into Monday in some parts, according to Environment Canada. It has issued snowfall, rainfall and storm surge warnings for much of the region.

"The storm is not quite over yet," said CBC meteorologist Trevor Adams.

"The centre of low pressure is situated back toward the Gulf of Maine and the storm is expected to move towards the north. That means it's going to cross New Brunswick, so it's still storming there and it's going to continue through a good part of the day, overnight tonight, and through tomorrow," he said.

[B]Parts of New Brunswick could see up to another [COLOR="Red"]60 centimetres of snow[/COLOR], along with [COLOR="red"]high winds[/COLOR], according to Environment Canada.[/B]

Nova Scotia will see primarily rain, with the exception of the Highlands, which could get another 25 centimetres of snow. Several parts of the province are also still under a storm surge warning.

"Although the worst storm surge conditions have passed for most coastal areas, water levels will remain elevated for the remainder of the day today," the web site states.

"Thus the combination of a run of high astronomical high tides, generally low atmospheric pressure and, over Chaleur-Miscou region, large pounding waves could lead to local coastal flooding and some damage to infrastructure near the shoreline."

In P.E.I., the entire province remained under a storm surge warning.

[B]State of emergency[/B]

The small coastal community of Port Elgin, N.B., which declared a state of emergency Saturday night after tidal storm surges flooded several streets and homes in the area, was still under a state of emergency Sunday

Terry Murphy, co-ordinator of emergency measures in the town, said he's never seen a storm cause so much damage in such a short amount of time.

"It's flooded Station Street in Port Elgin, some of Fort Street and we even had water in the centre of the village of Port Elgin," he said. "We had to block the roads until the tide receded. We had to evacuate people by boat and tractors."

Town officials made arrangements for the evacuees to spend the night at a local nursing home until the flood risk passed. As of Sunday morning, about 25 families were still unable to go back to their homes, said Murphy.

EMO officials warned the community to be prepared, but many families were caught off guard by the severity of the storm, he said.

About 50 kilometres away, storm surges during high tide also flooded the causeway, which connects the community of Pointe-du-Chêne with Shediac, leaving dozens of residents isolated.

Municipal officials expected the situation to improve Sunday with low tide, which started at 5 a.m.

[B]Power outages[/B]

Meanwhile, thousands of Maritimers were still waiting for their power to be restored on Sunday.

In New Brunswick, about 10,000 customers were without power and it could be midnight before it's restored, said spokeswoman Heather MacLean.

Treacherous road conditions may impede crews from heading into smaller communities, she said.

"They really are scattered around the province … Only a couple of areas have not been impacted or are without outages right now.

"Certainly down in the greater Moncton area we're seeing more there, as well as the Miramichi. So those are two areas definitely impacted with high winds and heavy wet snow."

Nova Scotia Power was reporting about 1,000 customers without power on Sunday, primarily in Pictou County. Officials said they hope to have the electricity back on by 3 p.m.

P.E.I. had about 500 outages, all in western Prince County.

Snowplow crews across the Maritimes also continued to dig out on Sunday.

"This is a bad one," said Mike Young, who operates a sidewalk plow for the Halifax Regional Municipality.

"It's not so much the amount that fell, but the rain coming in, mixed in and then it freezes up again and then it starts snowing," he said. "So if it wasn't for all of those things then it would have been easy; like, everything's a struggle."[/SIZE]