Winter Storm Cripples Nova Scotia: Thousands Lose Power, Schools Shut Down

Tens of thousands of homes and businesses in Nova Scotia are without power due to a winter storm that's bought wet and heavy snow to the province. All public schools in the province are closed. Most of Nova Scotia was expected to receive between 15 and 25 centimetres of snow, with closer to 30 centimetres in some higher-terrain areas of the province. In the Halifax area, police said they have closed Highway 118 outbound, just past Exit 13, due to a number of large trucks blocking the road. RCMP urged drivers to be careful, and said there have been multiple collisions on Highway 104 in Cumberland County and Highway 102 in Colchester County. The campuses of several universities are closed for the day, including Dalhousie, Mount Saint Vincent and Saint Mary’s. Both Saint Mary’s and Mount Saint Vincent said they faced power outages. A number of Nova Scotia Community College campuses are also closed. Nova Scotia Power said in a news release the heavy snow has built up on power equipment and also brought trees and branches down on power lines, leading to outages. The utility said it has hundreds of workers in the field trying to restore power, but poor road conditions are hampering the ability of crews to get to some sites. As of 11:39 a.m. AT, roughly 93,000 Nova Scotia Power customers were without electricity, down from more than 133,000 earlier in the morning. In the Halifax area, the municipality said most transit routes are passable, but buses are on snow plans, which means some are rerouted around trouble areas. Delays are expected. The municipality said the 1 a.m.-6 a.m. parking ban will be in place again overnight on Monday, which means vehicles cannot be parked on streets during those hours.