Maritime Electric has restored power to all but a handful of customers in eastern P.E.I. after a winter storm Saturday night.

As of 9 p.m. AT Monday, fewer 10 customers" remained without power, according to an emailed statement from communications officer Kristopher Jackson.

"Crews are in the areas of these outages and are working on restoring power to all of these customers," he said.

In New Brunswick, about 55 people in the Fredericton area were still without electricity Monday evening, according to the NB Power web site.

The utility had successfully restored power to about 1,000 customers in the Tracadie-Sheila area earlier in the day.

Thousands lost power

On P.E.I., a total of about 2,000 customers lost power during the peak of the storm.

Freezing rain left trees heavy with ice, which in some cases knocked power out a second time.

"The freezing rain caused the conductor to ice up, and when that happened a lot of the conductor came down," said Steve Loggie of Maritime Electric. "We had some broken polls, and when the wind came along it got worse," he said.

Noreen Payne said trees in her yard and her neighbours' yards were damaged by the storm. "I'm talking 12-inch branches, broke right off."

Poor driving conditions also hampered restoration efforts, officials said.

The island's utility had hoped to have power back by noon. Early Monday morning 500 were without power and by noon the lights were still out for 425.

"It's been out since Saturday, but with the wood stove, it's still comfortable, for me anyway," said Kim MacCormack, of Naufrage. "Some people are not so comfortable."

"I was expecting it to be on quicker, but if you look back years ago it was out for weeks, so this is still short," she said.