Moncton escapes worst of Earl

MONCTON, N.B. - The Moncton area has escaped relatively unscathed from Earl.  

The wind picked up late in the morning with heavy rain starting around noon, lasting approximately two hours.

Public Works reports there were no significant issues.

The strong winds did lead to power outages in the area,

There were just over 1,000 outages in the Moncton area at 4pm Saturday.

Saint John also saw much less impact than expected from Earl.

Things were much worse in the Halifax region.

Tropical storm warnings remain in effect for Halifax metro and county, and for  Lunenburg, Colchester, Cumberland, Pictou, Antigonish and Guysborough counties and most of Cape Breton.

Bill Appelby of the Canadian Hurricane Centre says Earl made landfall near Lunenburg around 10:30 a.m. Saturday and is now blasting through the province to the north.

"We expect it to move very rapidly, by six o'clock tonight it'll be out beyond the Iles de la Madelaine," he told Rick Howe

He says some of the highest winds were in the Halifax Harbour, clocked at a maximum of 126 kilometres an hour.

Through HRM, roads are closed, branches and trees are down and there are more than 120,000 people without power.

However, Nova Scotia Emergency Management Minister Ramona Jennex says so far, the situation hasn't warranted a state of emergency.

"We're not anywhere near close to that," she said. "So far, we've been lucky. The outages are just a normal part of high winds. We're not getting any reports at this time of anything that's major."

There have been no reports of injuries related to the hurricane, though four people were swept out to sea at Hirtle's Beach.

Karen Mills Crews, who witnessed the event, says a rogue wave swept the four adults off the beach late Saturday morning.

"It was just out of the blue," she said. "They got knocked down and were helped up right away, but kind of limped off the beach and luckily weren't pulled down into the beach."

Police are asking everyone to stay away from beaches and coastline and to avoid driving unless absolutely necessary. If they have to travel somewhere, drivers are asked to use extreme caution as there are downed power lines - some of them live - and traffic lights out of operation across the city and province.