Thousands were still without power in Nova Scotia and some communities in Newfoundland and Labrador were under a state of emergency Tuesday after torrential rain and strong winds blasted the region.
Images on social media showed the effects of devastating rain and winds that struck parts of Nova Scotia, including areas of Cape Breton where water levels rose rapidly, submerging cars and basements.
Some parts of Cape Breton were inundated with more than 200 millimetres of rain, and Wayne MacDonald, director of public works for the Cape Breton Regional Municipality, said the extent of flooding damage is not yet known.
"Manhole covers have come off due to the pressures and in areas there is... damage that cannot be seen yet with the waters this high," said MacDonald at a news conference Tuesday morning.
All schools in the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board were shut down Tuesday and comfort centres opened in North Sydney, Sydney and Reserve Mines.
There's a large contingent of people from Cape Breton in Sudbury, many of whom came North in the 1950s and 1960s to work in mining. Many of their descendants still live in the city.
Nova Scotia Power said there were a total of 144,000 outages across the province, and 55,000 homes and business were still in the dark early Tuesday morning — half of them in the Sydney area.
"The storm stalled over Nova Scotia and that caused sustained winds to last longer than anticipated," said power spokesman Paul Casey said in a news release, adding that most outages in western and central regions of the province would be fixed by 6 p.m. Tuesday, while eastern regions would be restored by 7 a.m. Wednesday.
Environment Canada said much of mainland Nova Scotia had received more than 100 millimetres of rain as of Monday evening.
Cape Breton police chief Peter McIsaac said extra staff had been brought in to deal with an overwhelming number of calls. He said officers had responded to people stranded in vehicles.
"We're having a problem with people not paying attention to the barricades... We have people who are going around the barricades and getting themselves into trouble and it's also interfering with the Public Works crews who are trying to get infrastructure back in shape," said McIsaac at a news conference.
– Files from Canadian Press.
