Ice storms have shut down highways and toppled power lines across eastern Canada, leaving some three million people without electricity and causing at least six deaths.
A state of emergency was declared in the capital, Ottawa, and repair crews were summoned from the United States to help with the massive clean-up.
"The streets here look like bombs hit them, with trees lying all over the place," said Ms Marjorie Northrup, who was displaced after her senior citizen's home in Montreal lost power.
Southern Quebec, including the Montreal area, was the hardest hit. Hydro-Quebec, the provincial power company, said nearly one million homes and businesses lost electricity and many will not have power restored until next week.
Thousands of residents took refuge in community centres after their homes lost power, but even some of the centres were blacked out. Motels and hotels with generators were booked solid with people fed up with shivering by candlelight.
The six fatalities blamed on the storm include three traffic deaths and three caused by improvised efforts to heat powerless homes.
The city's parks were littered with branches; officials estimated 16,000 trees were damaged.
The military deployed 2,500 soldiers in the Montreal area, primarily to aid displaced people and help clear tree branches from power lines and roadways.