WATCH: Residents are told to stay indoors after a chestnut tree falls, downing power lines and utility poles. April Lawrence reports.
A chestnut tree brought down two telephone poles on Balmoral Road in Victora on Wednesday morning.
Victoria police shut down Balmoral Road from Cook Street to Vancouver Street for more than six hours as they worked to restore telephone and power lines, and remove the massive tree from the roadway.
“Police had a quick response here and as a group we were able to shut down access to the properties and notify people to stay in their homes,” said Acting Battalion Chief Oscar Pohl.
“Our job here is to secure the scene and make sure nobody comes in contact with the lines.”
The large limb fell across the sidewalk and on top of several parked cars, but incredibly nobody was injured.
One of the cars belongs to Ky Smith who says if he was just a few minutes earlier he would have been in the tree’s path.
“I was just coming to move my car because it’s just two hour parking right,” Smith said.
“Couple minutes earlier I would have been in my car.”
The tree is on private property belonging to Mason Street City Farms.
“We were just in the house having coffee and someone yelled hey the power lines are down, so I came and looked out the door and yep power lines were down and so was the tree, didn’t hear a thing,” said Jesse Brown with Mason Street City Farms.
An arborist with Bartlett Tree Experts says chestnut trees are a weaker wood, especially if they’re older, but he says they are more susceptible to wind right now because they are in full leaf.
The leaves get weighted down by the rain, then catch the wind, and they can topple.
We're in the area of Balmoral/Vancouver with @VictoriaFire730 for Hydro lines that have come down. Please avoid area #yyjtraffic
— Victoria Police (@vicpdcanada) June 15, 2017
Traffic will be disrupted in the area for sometime. Please avoid the area while we wait for @bchydro #yyjtraffic pic.twitter.com/7m2py19iHm
— Victoria Police (@vicpdcanada) June 15, 2017
B.C. Hydro is also on scene. Cleanup is expected to take several hours.
Hydro lines and part of a tree are seen on Balmoral Road on June 15.
Alexa Huffman
