IHurricane Fiona struck Canada’s Atlantic coast on Saturday, bringing power to more than 500,000 homes, operators said.

For example, Nova Scotia Power, which supplies the province of Nova Scotia, where the storm made landfall in the morning, with winds exceeding 90 mph, reported more than 400,000 customers without power around 2:00 p.m. GMT. In the other two hardest-hit provinces, Prince Edward Island’s operator had taken 82,000 homes off the grid a little earlier, and New Brunswick’s 44,000.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned of this “powerful hurricane-force cyclone,” adding, “Significant impacts are expected due to strong winds, storm surges and heavy rainfall.” Canada has issued multiple severe weather warnings for most of its east coasts.

In its latest bulletin released at 11:45 GMT, the Canadian Hurricane Center (CHCO) mentions winds of about 130 km/h in Nova Scotia and notes that Fiona is moving north-northeast at a speed of 55 km/h.

“Large waves have reached the east coast of Nova Scotia and southwest Newfoundland and could exceed 12 meters,” he said. The American NHC informed him that the eye of the hurricane was over the Gulf of Saint Lawrence at 13:00 GMT.

“Never Seen”

“We have never seen weather conditions like this,” police in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, said on Twitter. “It’s unbelievable, there’s no electricity, no WiFi, no network,” the city’s mayor, Philip Brown, confirmed on public broadcaster Radio-Canada.

“Many trees have fallen, there is a lot of flooding on the roads,” he added. “It will certainly be a historic and extreme event for eastern Canada,” warned Bob Robichaud, meteorologist at the CCPO, at a news conference on Friday.

The prefecture of the local municipality of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon had warned of “very strong winds” and a “very strong swell” on Thursday and called on the inhabitants of this French Atlantic archipelago “to be extremely vigilant”.

Authorities in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia have asked everyone to stay indoors for at least 72 hours and pack enough supplies.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged everyone to “take the right precautions”. In Halifax, stores ran out of propane refills for camping as locals rushed to stock up.

“Nothing serious” in Bermuda

Fiona passed about 100 miles off Bermuda on Friday after wreaking havoc in the Caribbean. The hurricane brought gusts of 160 km/h and heavy rain across the British territory in the middle of the Atlantic with around 64,000 inhabitants, without there being any casualties or major damage.

Local residents posted pictures of the flooding and downed power lines on social media.

“We had some minor damage to our premises, but nothing serious,” Jason Rainer, owner of a gift shop in the capital, Hamilton, told AFP, noting that some doors and windows had been ripped off. Located a thousand kilometers from the United States and accustomed to hurricanes, the area is one of the most isolated places on earth, making emergency evacuation nearly impossible.

The main island therefore took the preparations seriously. Buildings and homes also have to meet strict building codes to withstand storms.