Storm huffs and puffs but does little damage to province's capital

Emergency officials say Fredericton was lucky to avoid flooding and damages when post-tropical storm Noel blew into the city on the weekend.

Wayne Knorr, communications officer for the City of Fredericton, said the region escaped serious problems such as flooding in spite of heavy rainfall Saturday night.

"Only minor problems," he said Sunday. "No localized flooding occurred in the city.

"Sometimes when you get rain like that you can expect some of the low-lying areas to experience flooding, but luckily none of that occurred this time."

Knorr said crews were busy clearing drains of debris to prevent overflow.

They also took care of fallen trees at Albert Street, Wilcox and Dykeman, Sunshine Gardens, Odell Park and near the Christ Church Cathedral. No serious damage resulted from any of the fallen trees.

About 2,026 homes in the greater Fredericton region were without power at different points following the storm.

Many of those outages were restored quickly.

Heather McLean, communications officer at NB Power, said high winds caused most of the outages but things could have been much worse.

"Our total outages (in the province) are about 7,500, and Nova Scotia is well over 150,000, so we fared really well in New Brunswick."

Bob Robichaud, spokesman for Environment Canada, said New Brunswick wasn't hit nearly as hard as the rest of Atlantic Canada.

"The storm tracked through New Brunswick (Saturday) night and then popped out the other side and headed towards the north shore of Quebec," he said.

"New Brunswick got the brunt of the rain, although (Nova Scotia) had some pretty good rains as well. The strongest winds were in Nova Scotia and southeastern Newfoundland."

NB Power reported fewer than 700 customers without power by 10 p.m. Sunday, mostly in Fredericton and St. Stephen.