Tens of thousands of people in Atlantic Canada and parts of Quebec remained without power late Sunday after the remnants of Hurricane Noel battered Atlantic Canada with high winds and driving rain.

This barn in Bayport, N.S., took a beating from the storm.
(Dylan Haines)

In Nova Scotia, which was hit hardest, as many as 170,000 homes and businesses lost electricity overnight. By late Sunday, Nova Scotia Power said nearly half had their power restored.

Half of those without power are in the Halifax area.

The utility's website said power should be restored to a list of 31 communities just before midnight on Tuesday.

NB Power reported outages for about 7,000 customers early Sunday, but by late evening, the number was down to around 2,800. In Prince Edward Island, about 2,500 people remained without power by the evening. 

In Newfoundland and Labrador, about 3,000 people lost their power, but utilities were predicting the lines would be repaired Sunday evening. The Humber Valley in the island's west was hit hardest, with nearby Corner Brook suffering a short outage.

"This storm cut a wide swath, and when the storm switched track a little bit it came right over population areas, so our crews are now out working right here in HRM, in Halifax, as well as other counties to the east and the west and into parts of Cape Breton," said Margaret Murphy of Nova Scotia Power.

"Our crews were able to work through parts of the storm and actually restore power to 50,000 customers last night at the height," she said.

Nova Scotia Power said it had sent 175 crews — all available employees — to assess and repair the damage. Another 37 crews from Hydro-Québec and Maine are heading for the province, and additional help from New England and perhaps New Brunswick may be available Monday.

In eastern Quebec, 100 millimetres of rain fell Saturday night on parts of the Gaspé Peninsula. In Perce, the mayor said damage will be in the millions of dollars.

At noon on Sunday, about 18,000 households on the North Shore were without power as a mixture of rain, wind and snow felled power lines.

Noel killed more than 100 in Caribbean

While it was still a hurricane, Noel killed at least 73 people in the Dominican Republic and 40 in Haiti. One person was killed in Jamaica and one man died in the Bahamas. It was downgraded to a tropical storm on Saturday, lashing the New England states as it churned north through the Atlantic.

A number of trees were toppled by the wind in Halifax and other communities.
(CBC)

The winds were at their strongest late Saturday and into early Sunday as the storm hit the southwest shore of Nova Scotia, before passing over New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Pounding rain and hurricane-force winds gusting to 130 kilometres per hour continued overnight across the Maritimes. To the north, gusts of 145 km/h were reported at Wreckhouse in southwestern Newfoundland early Sunday.

Some areas were expected to receive up to 70 millimetres of rain. About 20 centimetres had fallen by late afternoon in some inland areas of Labrador.

Overnight, city crews reported some flooding of streets in Moncton, N.B., where storm drains couldn't keep up with the flow of water.

Fallen tree limbs caused widespread power outages.
(CBC)

An elderly couple in Dartmouth, N.S., said the roof of their mobile home was torn off and there were numerous reports of fallen trees throughout the province.

At the Nova Scotia Hospital, one-third of the roof of a building blew off, damaging its front entrance.

Noel was having an impact on travel as well. Most flights across the region were cancelled on Saturday.

Aircraft were kept in hangars overnight, said Peter Spurway, spokesman for Robert L. Stanfield International Airport in Halifax.
 
"There will be some availability of aircraft Sunday morning, but it won't be the normal complement," he said, adding that airline schedules were to remain out of kilter for the next couple of days.