95% of BC Hydro customers impacted by damaging wind storm reconnected
Posted November 5, 2024 6:26 am.
Last Updated November 5, 2024 8:26 pm.
The province’s electricity provider says 95 per cent of the customers cut off by Monday’s windstorm have been reconnected to the power grid.
As of 6 a.m. Tuesday, about 16,000 customers were without power, with 11,000 of these in the Lower Mainland and on the Sunshine Coast. BC Hydro adds the remaining customers are on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO 1130 NEWSRADIO VANCOUVER LIVE!“Crews have been working around-the-clock to restore power, replacing dozens of spans of power line as well power poles and other electrical equipment,” Hydro said Tuesday.
In total, more than 290,000 customers were impacted by the storm that downed power lines and trees, BC Hydro explained on Monday.
“Crews will continue to work throughout the day and BC Hydro expects to have the majority of the remaining customers restored today – with the possible exception of small pockets of customers in areas with significant damage,” the electricity provider added on Tuesday.
“BC Hydro wants to thank its customers for their patience, and it will continue to provide updated estimates for power restoration as they become available at bchydro.com/outages.”
BC Hydro spokesperson Mora Scott told 1130 NewsRadio Tuesday afternoon that BC Hydro is hoping to get everything up and running again by the evening.
Scott says a multi-year drought in B.C. had significantly impacted the local vegetation in turn affecting the trees.
“So even when you have lesser degrees of wind, you still see a lot of trees and branches coming down. And so yesterday with significant winds that happened, we did see a lot of that,” she said.
Scott says she doesn’t have an estimated cost of the damages, but BC Hydro knows that storms are going to happen, so it builds the cost into its budgeting process.
The spokesperson says crews experienced several challenges with ongoing wind, and debris on the roads that was blocking many areas.
She says they needed to get helicopters up to patrol some of their longer lines, but because of the wind, weren’t able to do so on Monday.
“Today, with the better weather, we’re confident that we can get to some of those areas that we weren’t able to get to yesterday,” Scott said Tuesday.
“We do have helicopters going up this morning. And then much of the debris from the road has been cleared, creating access for our crews and their equipment to get in there and to begin restoration to areas that are still without power.”
BC Hydro spokesperson Kyle Donaldson told 1130 NewsRadio Monday that many of the outages may have been caused, indirectly, by climate conditions throughout the year.
“We’re in the middle of a multi-year drought here in British Columbia, and the vegetation is extremely dry right now. This is still very early on in storm season, and many of the trees, they still have leaves on them. In some cases, all it takes is just a little bit of wind to blow a tree over and make contact with a power line, and that results in a power outage for customers,” said Donaldson.
He says another outage in White Rock was caused by patio furniture blowing off a balcony and making contact with electrical infrastructure Monday morning. As a result, Donaldson said, around 14,000 customers in the White Rock area were taken off the grid.
Meanwhile, 1130 NewsRadio meteorologist Michael Kuss explains that he wasn’t terribly surprised by how destructive Monday’s winds were.
“What made the storm so damaging? A couple of things. First of all, the time of year, there’s still a lot of leaves in the trees, and those leaves act like a sail, really catching all that wind and knocking more limbs off and trees down. And of course, that creates power outages, and that’s what we had yesterday,” Kuss explained.
“The second thing is, how long the winds were strong. From yesterday morning, in fact all the way through early this morning, sustained winds were in the 40 kilometre per hour range for most of that period, and wind gusts ranged from 50 to as strong as 80 plus kilometres per hour.”
Kuss says the strongest recorded winds were on Vancouver Island, including in Victoria Harbour.
“Wind gusts were hitting 100 kilometres per hour [there] yesterday. Across the Lower Mainland, wind gusts for pretty much everywhere were over 70 kilometres per hour, touching 85 km/h in Chilliwack,” Kuss added.
You can watch CityNews 24/7 live or listen live to 1130 NewsRadio Vancouver to keep up to date with this story. You can also subscribe to breaking news alerts sent directly to your inbox.
-With files from Raynaldo Suarez, Srushti Gangdev and Aastha Pandey-Kanaan
