BC Hydro crews are dealing with outages in Parksville and Qualicum Beach that have left 28,000 customers without power.
The majority of the outages occurred around 9 a.m., but according to the BC Hydro website, some have been without power since shortly before 6:30 a.m.
Of all the outages, 26,207 customers are without power due to a transmission circuit failure.
Ted Olynyk, spokesperson for BC Hydro says the exact cause of the transmission failure is not yet known, but crews are on scene.
“Just around nine o’clock we had a transmission failure and transmission circuit failure, meaning it just wasn’t operating,” Olynyk said. “And that’s because we believe there’s probably a tree on the line somewhere that hasn’t yet been confirmed.”
Initially the power outage affected around 40,000 customers, but Olynyk says that has been reduced to 28,000.
In Nanoose Bay there are about 2,000 customers whose outage is due to power lines being down.
“In Nanoose Bay there’s significant issues on the distribution line with seven spans of line down,” Olynyk said. “The Nanoose Bay one, because of the extent of the damage that’ll take longer to resolve.”
Olynyk said the outages in Nanoose Bay the outages will last into the evening.
The rest of the region is expected to have power restored by approximately 3 p.m.
Crews found at tree down across wires, however Olynyk says a helicopter will be needed to access the damaged area.
The outage on #VancouverIsland was caused by heavy, wet snow bringing down several trees. Crews are working to complete repairs but customers may still experience an outage once the line is restored due to smaller, localized damage. Updates here: https://t.co/YiO45vLUiL pic.twitter.com/uuljl5C87G
— BC Hydro (@bchydro) April 10, 2022
The remaining customers have lost power due to a tree down across wires, the snow, or for causes still under investigation.
There is no estimate as of yet of when power will be restored.
Crews are on site at an outage affecting 28,000 customers on #VancouverIsland, including #Parksville and #QualicumBeach. They'll share the latest updates here: https://t.co/uu1tG78Bz2 pic.twitter.com/UY1yGXHaoy
— BC Hydro (@bchydro) April 10, 2022
Laura Brougham
