Thousands of people have now had their power restored following a storm on Tuesday.
BC Hydro says as of Tuesday evening crews have restored power to 70 per cent of the nearly 118,000 customers on Vancouver Island and the South Coast following a wind storm earlier in the day.
However, approximately 36,000 customers remain without power, primarily in Courtenay and Port Hardy and Langley.
There were more than 30 separate outages impacting an estimated 13,400 customers as of Tuesday morning and more than 53,000 customers in the entire South Coast area were without power.
Strong winds on Tuesday morning have caused multiple outages on northern #VancouverIsland, particularly in #CampbellRiver. Crews are sharing available power outage updates here: https://t.co/WHnYWayTx2 #BCStorm pic.twitter.com/9DXMaGNnM5
— BC Hydro (@bchydro) November 17, 2020
BC Hydro says the outages were caused by strong winds and that Campbell River was one of the most significantly impacted areas.
At least 5,000 customers between Courtenay and Port Hardy are still without power as a result of the outages, according to BC Hydro’s outage map.
BC Hydro is reminding residents that any fallen power lines are to be considered an emergency and are advising anyone in the vicinity to stay at least 10 metres back and call 9-1-1 immediately.
Tuesday’s storm comes days after another storm hit Vancouver Island, resulting in power outages. BC Hydro says there has been a 117 per cent increase in these types of storms over the last several years.
Meanwhile, Environment Canada issued wind warnings for a large portion of Vancouver Island on Monday, suggesting that gusts could reach speeds between 70 km/h to 100 km/hr.
In addition to the wind, heavy rain has been falling, which has led to flooding concerns in places such as Courtenay.
Lewis Park in #Courtenay is under water though, as is often the case in a storm event like this. At least all the snow from last night is gone. Temperature is now over +10° @CHEK_News @armelcastellan #bcstorm pic.twitter.com/xvrnWj5FHn
— Dean Stoltz (@deanstoltzchek) November 17, 2020
The wind sparked BC Ferries to cancel several morning sailings as well.
Changes to the BC Ferries sailing schedule can be found here.
Graham Cox
