HALIFAX — Noel was nasty, but nothing like hurricane Juan.
The post-tropical storm, the remnants of a full-fledged hurricane that killed 143 people in the Caribbean earlier in the week, was a much tamer beast by the time it rolled into Atlantic Canada early Sunday.
Powerful gusts pulled limbs from trees, knocking out power to about 190,000 homes and businesses across the region, and there were reports of washed-out roads and other damage.
But there were few signs of the kind of destruction that was inflicted on the region four years ago by Juan, a smaller but more intense system.
A family makes their way around an uprooted tree, toppled by Hurricane Noel, on Quinpool road in Halifax on Sunday. (Paul Darrow/Reuters)
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CTV Newsnet: Denelle Balfour reports on Noel's progress from Dartmouth, N.S.
"It's half decent, but it's not as bad as it was for hurricane Juan," said Doug Mercer as he shot video of ragged whitecaps on Halifax harbour in the pre-dawn darkness.
"I was down here the same night Juan was happening. This is more like an average winter storm."
In Halifax, dawn broke with the electricity still on in the downtown core but most surrounding neighbourhoods doing without. Streets were littered with broken branches, shredded leaves and the occasional downed power line, but residents awoke with relief that the damage inflicted by Juan's direct hit in September 2003 hadn't been repeated.
"It's not as strong, there's not near the damage," said another man who went to the waterfront at the height of the storm. "The boats are still in the water here, no trains off the tracks."
Seven people died in the region as a result of Juan, a Category 2 hurricane that felled hundreds of thousands of trees and knocked out power to 300,000 homes and businesses in Nova Scotia alone — some for more than a week.
Juan's gusts were so powerful — 185 km/h in some bursts — they knocked a string of railcars off tracks at the edge of Halifax harbour, and tossed yachts onto land like children's toys. About 70,000 trees were uprooted in Point Pleasant Park alone.
One of the few trees ripped from the ground in Halifax by Noel narrowly missed Dov Bercovici's west-end home.
"It really sounded like a bomb," he said later as children played around the tree's exposed roots.
"The whole house shook and woke us up immediately. We had no idea what it was."
In coastal areas outside Halifax, the damage caused by the storm was heavier than in the city.
Eben Fry, who lives in Indian Harbour, was walking his dog on a shoreline road that was washed out by the storm.
"Basically it looks like the ocean picked up the road and shifted it a few feet," he said.
Carole MacInnis, owner of Oceanstone Cottages in Indian Harbour, said the storm surge was higher from Noel and caused more damage to her property than Juan did.
"I was here during Juan and we definitely have had more damage and it was more dramatic than Juan, which was surprising," she said.
"It was a little more exciting than I wanted."
Noel packed hurricane-force winds when it hit Nova Scotia shortly after midnight Sunday. The peak gust in the Halifax area was recorded in the middle of the harbour at 135 km/h.
In Cape Breton, where the wind always seems to blow harder, gusts at Grand Etang hit 143 km/h.
Margaret Murphy, a spokeswoman for Nova Scotia Power, said 150 crews, backed by private contractors and 20 crews from Maine and Quebec, were handling the outages. By noon, 130,000 customers were still without power in the province.
"We hope to make good progress today and tomorrow," she said in an interview.
The vast majority of those who lost power were expected to have their service restored by Monday. But that was little consolation to those who had to cope with the fact that temperatures were expected to dip close to the freezing mark overnight.
NB Power reported 6,600 customers without power, mostly in the western part of New Brunswick.
Andy Morton, a spokesman for New Brunswick's Emergency Measures Organization, said the storm left its dangerous mark over a vast swath of territory.
"Certainly we would want people to stay on alert because there's still the possibility of debris on the road if they're travelling, or downed power lines that might be live," he said.
In Prince Edward Island, more than 10,000 Maritime Electric customers were without power early Sunday, most of them in Kings County. The Confederation Bridge was closed for about an hour at the height of the storm
Noel also delivered heavy rain, with 130 millimetres reported in one small community in northern Cape Breton. Other parts of the Maritimes received between 60 mm and 90 mm.
Emergency officials said they were relieved to see the storm move on, but they were quick to praise residents for preparing for the storm — something few did before Juan slammed into the area.
The Canadian Hurricane Centre in Dartmouth, N.S., received reports Sunday of many downed power lines, a road being washed out near Eastern Passage, N.S., bricks torn from the side of one building and a trailer home in Dartmouth had its roof peeled back like a tin can.
The massive weather system left the region by noon and headed across the Gulf of St. Lawrence to central Labrador, moving at about 60 kilometres per hour.
Although the worst passed early for Nova Scotia, residents were warned to stay away from the shorelines as heavy waves were expected to pound the coastline.
"The coastline from the southwestern tip of Nova Scotia to the eastern shore of Nova Scotia is highly prone to these very large waves coming in from the south," said Chris Fogarty, a meteorologist with the hurricane centre.
Wind warnings remained in effect for Nova Scotia, parts of New Brunswick, P.E.I., Isle de la Madeleine, and parts of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The hurricane centre said peak winds at Wreckhouse in Newfoundland and Labrador — one of the windiest places in the world — were recorded at 180 km/h.
Even before the full effect of the storm hit Atlantic Canada late Saturday and early Sunday, Noel made itself known.
Nearly all flights leaving and arriving at the Halifax Robert L. Stanfield International Airport were cancelled Saturday evening along with some Sunday morning.
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