Hundreds of thousands of households in Quebec were without electricity today, two days after the ice storm came in from the east. Canadaresulting in the death of two people and extensive property damage, mainly in Montreal.

“We have restored power to just over a third of the residents affected by the outages caused by the ice storm,” announced electricity supplier Hydro-Québec.

Nearly 630,000 households were without electricity by noon today, compared to 1.1 million when power outages were at their peak.

“We are very pleased with the way Hydro-Québec is handling the crisis,” Quebec Minister of Economy and Energy Pierre Fitzgibbon told a news conference today.

The company estimates that it will be able to restore power to most customers by late Friday evening.

“We know that for some customers this will last until Sunday, maybe even until Monday,” Hydro-Québec spokesman Régis Tellier said.

“More favorable weather conditions” later in the day are expected to “speed up the restoration of service,” he added.

By then, the city of Montreal, which has recorded almost half of the blackouts, opened six temporary emergency shelters where residents slept without electricity.

These centers remained available throughout the day for those who wanted to stretch on the first day of the Easter long weekend.