Snow, freezing rain combo contribute to major power outages in B.C.

The wintery weather the province is facing Thursday is the worst-case scenario for power outages, according to BC Hydro, as the nasty heavy morning snow is being topped off with freezing rain.

Spokesperson Susie Rieder explains because tree branches become so heavy due to the snow, they fall onto power lines, and with the freezing rain, “there’s the potential for ice to encase things and make it more brittle.”

“We do have more trees per kilometre of power line than most utilities in North America,” Rieder adds. “So trees do cause many outages.”

For this reason, she says BC Hydro has upped its ‘vegetation management program.’ Through this program, crews look for “weak vegetation” that has the potential to cause power outages and will clear or make adjustments to the problem as needed.

“We are fully prepared for any situation,” Rieder said. “We have all hands on deck. We have seen storms like this before and our meteorologists have been tracking this carefully. We have all available crews and contractor crews on standby because we know how difficult these type of freezing rain and snow events can get.”

#BCStorm update: We’re expecting more snow and freezing rain today and all available crews are working hard to restore power. Here’s the latest info from our team.

????Report outages: 1 800 224 9376
????Report fallen power lines: 9-1-1
????Outage updates: https://t.co/cw3nx4YUDx pic.twitter.com/1JvVezony5

— BC Hydro (@bchydro) January 6, 2022

Snow started to fall Wednesday evening into Thursday morning. The flurries combined with high winds and freezing rain resulted in about 25,000 customers across B.C. without power.

In Vancouver, about 6,000 customers were affected Thursday morning because a tree fell onto the hydro line. That has since cleared up, but about 70 people remain without power as of midday.

As of Thursday at 12 p.m., more than 5,700 customers are without power in the Lower Mainland.

Rieder says the weather’s effects on power lines is exactly what happened a few years ago when the province saw widespread outages across the province for days.

“One of the worst storms that we saw was in 2017, the ice storm that lasted for several days and over 700,000 customers in total through that storm were without power. And that was due to freezing rain and high winds mostly, as well as snow,” she said.

Read More: Bridge, highway closures possible as Metro Vancouver hit with more snow

Because this is a storm BC Hydro is familiar with — and as these weather events are expected to occur more often — Rieder doubles down and says, “we are prepared.”

“It seems like storm season is almost year-round now, where we’re getting these extreme weather events where we had the challenge of the heat dome, that weakened vegetation in the summer, and then we had heavy rain events and flooding. And now we’re seeing snow and ice. So it’s been extremely challenging,” she said.

Rieder is reminding British Columbians to be prepared for an outage by having flashlights handy and an emergency kit with at least 72 hours worth of non-perishables, bottled water, and ways to stay warm. She also says that if you see a downed power line, stay back 10 meters and call 911.