HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (AP) — Houses have been washed into the sea, roofs have been torn off and Fiona knocked out power to almost all of one Atlantic Canadian province and 80 percent of another Saturday, as it made landfall as a big, powerful post-tropical cyclone.
Scotia Houses have been washed into the sea, roofs have been torn off and Fiona knocked out power to almost all of one Atlantic Canadian province and 80 percent of another Saturday, as it made landfall as a big, powerful post-tropical cyclone.
Fiona transformed from a hurricane into a post-tropical storm late Friday, but it still had hurricane-strength winds and brought drenching rains and huge waves.
Ocean waves pounded the town of Port Aux Basques on the southern coast of Newfoundland, where entire structures were washed into the sea. Mayor Brian Button said Saturday over social media that people were being evacuated to high ground as winds knocked down power lines.
“We’ve already had houses … that are washed away,” he said.
Button said anybody who has been told to leave their home needs to leave. “It is just a pure mess out there,” he said.
The Royal Canadian Police said the town of 4,000 is in a state of emergency as authorities deal with multiple electrical fires and residential flooding.
More than 415,000 Nova Scotia Power customers — about 80% of the province of almost 1 million — were affected by outages Saturday morning. Over 82,000 customers in the province of Prince Edward Island were also without power, while NB Power in New Brunswick reported 44,329 were without electricity.
The fast-moving Fiona made Nova Scotia landfall before dawn Saturday, with its power down from the Category 4 strength it had early Friday when passing by Bermuda, though officials there reported no serious damage.
The Canadian Hurricane Centre tweeted early Saturday that Fiona has the lowest pressure ever recorded for a storm making landfall in Canada. Forecasters had warned it could be the one of the most powerful storms to hit the country.
A state of local emergency has also been declared by the mayor and council of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality amid widespread power outages, road closures and damage to homes.
“There are homes that have been significantly damaged due to downed trees, big old trees falling down and causing significant damage.
