Maritime Electric had restored power to all but about 2,300 customers on P.E.I. by early Friday afternoon following an ice storm, but the Red Cross was asking shelters to remain open.

The community centre in North Rustico was busy Thursday, but pretty much shut down on Friday.
(CBC)

"There still are individuals out there with no power and they are certainly going to be looking for support from their communities," Red Cross regional director Marcia Carroll told CBC News Friday.

Some Islanders have had no power since Monday. The weather is turning colder, and another winter storm is forecast to hit P.E.I. Friday night with five centimetres of snow and ice pellets, before once again turning to freezing rain.

Carroll said some shelters have already closed, but should more Islanders lose power again, they are fully stocked and ready to re-open in as short a time as it takes someone to get there to unlock the door.

"We're watching the weather very closely, so we'll be evaluating it on an hour-to-hour basis," she said.

Since being able to get a helicopter into the air late Wednesday to survey damage, Maritime Electric has made big progress in restoring power. At that time 22,000 households were without electricity.

For about three hours on Wednesday, 95 per cent of the Island was without electricity.

Company spokeswoman Kim Griffin said the last 2,300 will come back on more slowly.

"We expect throughout the day and into Saturday that we'll be doing a lot of individual and smaller pockets of outages through central and western P.E.I.," Griffin said.

"We do have all of our crews out on the road today, 38 crews out on the road, and they will continue out on the road until power is restored."

Griffin said it may take until Saturday or Sunday before power is restored everywhere.