P.E.I. comes together in wake of ice storm

HUNTER RIVER, P.E.I. - When an ice storm knocked out power to much of Prince Edward Island earlier this week, Wayne Dickieson did what he could do to help his neighbours: he hooked up the generator at his farm and told his fellow Islanders to drop by.
"The farm supplied a lot of water for a lot of people," Dickieson, who lives in North Rustico, said Friday while stopping for gas in Hunter River, northwest of Charlottetown.
"People showed up with their five-gallon white buckets. Water was the main thing - a lot of people have wood stoves and that can keep things warm enough, but they don't have water to flush their toilets and stuff like that."
Islanders across the province have lent out generators, cooked up food for strangers and offered whatever help they could after more than 20,000 people were left in the dark in the wake of Monday's ice storm.
Central and western regions were hit the hardest, but Charlottetown and points east were in the dark for about three hours Wednesday. At one point, power outages were being reported across the Island.
By Friday, fewer than 3,000 people were still without service, though Maritime Electric cautioned that all repairs would not be completed until the weekend.
At the height of the outages, entire communities were plunged into darkness.
Local fire departments and Red Cross teams set up temporary shelters at fire halls and legions.
Wade Graham, a lobster fisherman from New London, said residents pulled together in a way that is typical for the Maritimes, a region that has known its share of deprivation and punishing weather.
"Everybody's done a great job around here," he said while stopping for coffee in Kensington, just east of Summerside.
"We had the community complex in New London put on breakfasts and dinners. It's been a bit of a struggle, but everybody's got through it pretty good."
Graham had kind words for the 37 utility crews, some brought in from neighbouring New Brunswick, that had fanned out across the province.
"They've been doing great," he said. "Yesterday, we were just out driving around and noticed a couple spots where the power lines were down, so we told them and there were right there in no time."
The crews' work was made easier Thursday and Friday with sunny skies overhead, temperatures just below freezing and a slight breeze.
However, Environment Canada issued a freezing rain warning Friday, predicting snow, changing to ice pellets by dawn Saturday.