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St. Mary’s Mayor Steve Ryan is devastated by the loss of the fish plant. He says he was one of the first people on the scene Tuesday night. (Terry Roberts\/CBC)<\/p>\nSt. Mary\u2019s Mayor Steve Ryan describes Tuesday night\u2019s events as \u201ca perfect storm.\u201d<\/p>\n
After just an hour of sleep, Ryan told CBC Radio that he was devastated to see the town\u2019s fish plant, owned by St. Mary’s Bay Fisheries, had burned down.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe conditions were just unbearable,\u201d he said Wednesday morning, illustrating a scene of intense fire amid hurricane-force winds in his small N.L. town.\u00a0<\/p>\n
About 20 residents evacuated their homes to stay at the town hall until the early hours of the morning, Ryan confirmed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The fish plant was the largest employer in the region with more than 300 workers \u2014 both from the St. Mary\u2019s area and abroad \u2014 during its peak season. The mayor said it provided good, high-paying jobs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a success story here\u2026. It\u2019s really hurtful,\u201d he said with a shaky voice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people planned their lives around the plant.\u201d<\/p>\n
St. Mary’s Mayor Steve Ryan is devastated by the loss of the fish plant. He says he was one of the first people on the scene Tuesday night. (Terry Roberts\/CBC)<\/p>\n
Ryan said the fire flared up Wednesday morning, likely because of continuing high winds. He said it\u2019s now under control.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Winds along the southern Avalon Peninsula gusted as high as 172 km\/h on Tuesday. Environment Canada\u2019s wind warning is still in effect for the Avalon Peninsula throughout Wednesday, with gusts up to 110 km\/h expected along the coast.<\/p>\n
A coastal flooding warning is also in effect for the southern Avalon.<\/p>\n
Communication blackout\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ryan and St. Vincent\u2019s Mayor Verna Hayward both said the situation was complicated even further when power went out, taking any available cell service along with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hayward told CBC News that the loss of the fish plant is tragic for her town as well, but people weren\u2019t able to call and check in on each other when power went out as it burned.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had no phone communication,\u201d Hayward said. \u201cWhen something happens like a fire, we don\u2019t have time to go around knocking on doors.\u2026 We are at a standstill.\u201d<\/p>\n
The St. Vincent\u2019s mayor said cell coverage can be spotty in that area on a good day. She\u2019d like that to change.<\/p>\n
Closures and outages<\/p>\n
Flooding on Route 90 through St. Vincent\u2019s Beach has forced the road to close in both directions. The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure is advising people to avoid the area.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762353915_52_default.jpg\")
Environment Canada has issued a wind warning for much of Newfoundland and a coastal flooding warning for the southern portion of the Avalon Peninsula. (Environment Canada)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
As of Wednesday morning, 41 customers were still without power from St. John\u2019s to the southern shore according to Newfoundland Power\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
In Long Harbour and Coley\u2019s Point, 272 were still without power.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Power was still out for 806 customers on the Burin Peninsula and 1,307 from Sunnyside to the Bonavista Peninsula and vicinity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The area of Gander to New-Wes-Valley and nearby communities had 1,217 customers wake up to no power.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the communities of Seal Cove-Wild Cove, Point of Bay, Cottrell\u2019s Cove and Fortune Harbour, 584 were without power at the time of writing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Glenda Power, the communications director for Newfoundland Power, says most power should be restored by noon N.T. Wednesday. <\/p>\n
“Hopefully we won’t have any further outages, but that’s a little unpredictable at the moment given the winds are still high,” she said in an interview on The St. John’s Morning Show.<\/p>\n
Download our<\/strong>\u00a0free CBC News app<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our<\/strong>\u00a0daily headlines newsletter here<\/strong><\/a>. Click<\/strong>\u00a0here to visit our landing page<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Mary\u2019s Mayor Steve Ryan describes Tuesday night\u2019s events as \u201ca perfect storm.\u201d After just an hour of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":357642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2147,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-357641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115497633317163396","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}