Ontario Premier Doug Ford to visit areas without electricity since ice storm [Video]

Premier Doug Ford said Thursday that he plans to visit some areas affected by prolonged power outages since a powerful ice storm hit central and northern Ontario over the weekend.

More than 190,000 homes and businesses were still in the dark midday Thursday, a Hydro One outage map showed, after the storm caused severe damage in cities such as Orillia and Peterborough.

Another storm system that moved through parts of Ontario Wednesday and overnight caused additional scattered outages and slowed down restoration efforts, the utility said.

Hydro One said power has been restored for more than 83 per cent of nearly a million affected customers but there is “still a lot of work ahead” until everyone gets their electricity back.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Ford told reporters at Queen’s Park on Thursday morning. “We’re working full out again, we have the teams out there from emergency management, the Ontario Corps, warming centres, …