Highway Back Open

Highway 1 Westbound is back open to traffic. 

The roadway was closed near the Fox Farm Road exit after several tractor trailers got stuck in the area.

NB Power Customers Still In The Dark

Thousands of NB Power customers continue to be left in the dark due to the season's first big snowstorm.

Over 4,000 Fredericton area customers are in the dark, over 2000 near Sussex, 800 in Woodstock and about 300 in Rothesay.

NB power is working to restore power to those customers.

Messy Driving In Saint John Today

Police, Fire and Ambulance crews are very busy today with a series of collisions around the City and in the outskirts.
 
There were back to back collisions on the Loch Lomond Road earlier that blocked traffic.

Police are directing traffic on Sandy Point Road where a tractor tractor is stuck.  They are waiting for the area to be salted and plowed before the truck can back up enough to get out of the area.

We are also hearing that the side roads in the City are slick and the sidewalks around town are slippery.

Earlier today a tractor-trailer jackknifed near Five Fathom Hole on the Highway and there was a head on collision on the west side at Manchester Avenue and McGill Road.    Near Dairytown, a few tractor trailers were parked on the side of the highway because they couldn't make it up the hill.

At the Saint John Airport, a flight arriving from Halifax at 4:30 today is delayed along wtih a flight from Toronto at 5pm.   A 445 flight leaving for Halifax is also delayed.

Optimism From Patient Rights Advocate About Drug Coverage

Patient Rights Advocate Barry Katsoff is cautiously optimistic we'll be hearing more about a catastrophic drug coverage plan for everyone from the Alward Government by the time it unveils the provincial budget in March. He tells CHSJ News there's still some fine tuning to do.

Katsoff, himself, suffers from a rare blood disease but lives in Montreal and Quebec is the only province that provides coverage.

Katsoff concedes he isn't ready to pop out a bottle champagne just yet because the devil is in the details.

The provincial government tabled a report that recommends a plan to cover the 70-thousand families who have no drug plan at all. Flemming vows private insurance plans will be forced to cover the same drugs as those by the government.
 

More Land To Open Up At Q-Plex Community Garden

The number of people who have used the Q-Plex has reached a quarter of a million according to Quispamsis Mayor Murray Driscoll. 

He tells CHSJ News the community garden by the Q-Plex will be made larger next year. 80 plots of land sold quickly and the Mayor isn't sure yet whether that number will be doubled.
 
He also says 50 thousand people used the swimming pool this past summer, ten thousand more than the year before.

Thousands Are Without Power

Over 8000 people in the province are without power today.

In Fredericton, more than 4000 NB Power customers are without electricity.
 
More than 900 customers in Woodstock are in the dark, 500 people in Dairytown do not have juice and it's the same story for over 300 folks in St. Stephen.

In a release,  a spokesperson for the Utility tells CHSJ News that due to the weather conditions and the high number of incidents they cannot predict when the power will be restored adding it will be sometime in the next 24 to 36 hours.

 To see a current list of outages, click here

Slick Roads Lead To Collisions

Be careful when you are out and about today, roads in the City and beyond are slippery.

City police are busy with a few collisions around town including Foster Thurston Road, Samuel Davis Drive.
Police are directing traffic in the area.

A tractor-trailer has jackknifed near Five Fathom Hole on Highway 1 near Musquash.

Earlier this morning, there was a collision between a dump truck and a car on Golden Grove Road and McGill Road. 

We hear the side streets and sidewalks in Saint John are slick today as well.

School Closing Early

The Anglophone South School District announcing Fundy Shores school will closing today at 11:30.

More Number Crunching Needed In Quispamsis

A 241 thousand dollar cut in provincial funding has caused Quispamsis Town Council to delay finalisation of next year's budget. 

Mayor Murray Driscoll tells CHSJ News the cut was deeper than the town anticipated and the loss can only be made up through taxation. He quickly adds that doesn't necessarily mean the town's tax rate will be going up but a review is underway.


Driscoll says the province plans further funding reductions, not just next year, but in the two years after that which means the overall cut, when it's all said and done, will be significant.

The town's budget will be unveiled at a special meeting January 8th.