Islanders resilient, curious and 'thankful' in wake of Dorian

Many Islanders woke to power outages andtrees and power lineslittering P.E.I.'s streets, as well as food threatening to spoilinside their fridges on Sunday morning, after a powerful post-tropical storm swept through the region.

About 50,000 Maritime Electric customers in the province remained in the dark as of 6 p.m. AT Sunday, according to utility spokesperson Kim Griffin.

Islander Lesley Dubey saidshe spent much of the day scrambling for creative ways to hear the news and charge her devices.

"We don't have a portable radio, which is a bit silly of us, but my daughter was able to phone from Toronto," said Dubey.

"She said, 'Why don't you go down to the car, put the car radio on, plug your cellphone in and charge it up?'"

As Hurricane Dorian approached the Island, Dubeysaid it was difficult to decide if she should stay in Charlottetown or leave for her summer home in O'Leary, P.E.I.,to weather the storm.

Dubeydecided to stay in Charlottetown.

"We felt more secure here because we are very isolated out there," she said."And if something happens, we are injured ... its hard."

Having got her fill of news and fresh coffee, Dubeysaid the rest of the day would be spent inside, curled up with a book.

"Take it easy. Be thankful. Be thankful that we're OK," she said.

Some peoplekept busy amidst the debris of fallen trees and branches scattered across Charlottetown armed with chainsaws to clear their properties.

"The wind was going crazy and I kept hearing thunkslike things were falling,"saidRosie Le Faive.

"When I woke up to a bunch of flashing lights outside, I came out and there were three fire trucks here and a bunch of firemen looking at what looked like a tree down on the car."

The fallen tree also disconnected a power line, causing the entire block to lose power.

Before cleaning up her house on Sunday morning, Le Faive was off to work to make sure the computers would be ready for the work week on Monday.

Droves of Islanders without powerlined upoutside coffee shops and restaurants to get food and drinks, whilecurious Islanders headed out in their carsto explore the freshly pummelled Island.

"I think a lot of people are pretty curious of what kind of damages were done in the storm and just had nothing else to do and kind of had that cabin fever so wanted to get out," said Ambrose MacIntyre.

Some Islanders could be seen stepping out of their cars to grab a selfie or two in front of Cows Creamery in North River, including MacIntyre. The business's larger-than-life sculpture was blown over by strong winds.

"Must have went about 50 yards down the road," said MacIntyre. "I just want to come and get a picturebecause my daughter, she lives in Alberta, and I'm going to send her a picture of it and she'll get a kick out of that."

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