Hydro crews working to restore power after B.C. storm

Thousands of BC Hydro customers were without power Friday evening across the Lower Mainland, mainly in the Fraser Valley — but the utility says most will have the lights back on by Saturday morning.

“Crews have made good progress restoring power to customers affected from outages caused by the snow and freezing rain particularly in the eastern Fraser Valley. Crews will continue to work around the clock to restore power,” says an update posted at 8:30 p.m.

“Customers in Manning Park and Sunshine Valley will be without power until tomorrow due to the risk of avalanche in the area.”

#BCStorm update: We have hundreds of power line technicians and support staff working throughout #BC to restore power to customers affected by this winter storm. Watch this update from our team and please continue to find the latest outage updates here: https://t.co/hxlseHGM1l pic.twitter.com/QuRFret6Pt

— BC Hydro (@bchydro) January 8, 2022

The impact of Thursday’s wintry weather and freezing rain left many areas susceptible to falling trees, prompting a warning from BC Hydro that outages were likely to happen as a result.

Read more: Lynn Canyon Park closed, heavy snowfall causes safety issues

Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Mission, and Kent are among the areas hardest-hit. Squamish also saw a number of outages, as did communities on the Sunshine Coast.

In addition to icy conditions, high winds began to pick up during the morning commute, causing BC Ferries to cancel some sailings between the Vancouver Island and Tsawwassen.

High winds have picked up in Vancouver and the waves are now so high they are filling a frozen Kits Beach pool (forgive the shaky filming, the wind strong/chilly) pic.twitter.com/nQ3L2RF5Q1

— Claire Fenton (@Ceeceefenton) January 7, 2022

On Friday morning, BC Ferries says adverse weather conditions made the sailings too dangerous between Tsawwassen and Swartz Bay, as well as Duke Point and Tsawwassen. Sailings between Horseshoe Bay and Departure Bay were also cancelled.

However, Deborah Marshall with the company says the winds are expected to ease Friday afternoon and service is expected to resume between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.

“It does depend on the route,” she noted. “I would suggest any customer wanting to travel with us today please do check our website.”

⚠️ #TravelAdvisory ⚠️
There are cancellations on the following routes today due to strong winds:

Tsawwassen – Swartz Bay
Tsawwassen – Duke Pt.
Horseshoe Bay – Dep. Bay
Powell River – Little River
Westview – Blubber Bay

Check the status of all routes: https://t.co/q47FuYkcmg pic.twitter.com/35w7SqchNE

— BC Ferries (@BCFerries) January 7, 2022

However, the later sailings are expected to be busier than usual.

“Because we’ve had some cancellations, I would expect some pent-up demand. So we would plan to see some lineups out the terminals, Marshall said.

With files from Robyn Crawford