Power out for thousands on Vancouver Island should be restored Thursday night: BC Hydro

VANCOUVER ISLAND (NEWS 1130) —  One week after a powerful windstorm knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people across the province, BC Hydro is inching closer to restoring electricity to everyone.

About 99 per cent of those affected have their power back on and those still without it on Vancouver Island can expect to have their lights back on sometime later today. Right now, there are just over 4,000 customers without power, down from the 7,000 customers that were in the dark on Boxing Day.

BC Hydro says the southern Gulf Islands sustained some of the worst damage and those customers will likely have to wait until New Year’s Eve to turn the lights back on.

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RELATED: BC Hydro: Outages on Van Island and Gulf Islands restored by Dec. 31

The utility has more than 30 crews working around the clock to fix outages.

On December 20, winds higher than 100 km/h hit the province, leaving more than 700,000 customers in the dark and damaging hundreds of power lines and hydro infrastructure.

– With files from the Canadian Press