A power line and trees down on Nanaimo River Road, west of South Forks Road, on Dec. 22. Gemma Martin, who took the photo, said the road is the only way in and out of her house.
Crews from Alberta and Atlantic Canada have been brought in to help restore power to about 20,000 BC Hydro customers who are still in the dark after Thursday’s destructive windstorm.
BC Hydro crews have been working since Thursday to restore service since winds as high as 100 km/h uprooted trees and brought down power lines.
The utility said Monday morning it had restored power to more than 600,000 customers since Thursday, including all customers in the Lower Mainland and the Fraser Valley.
Contractor crews from the east coast and Alberta are assisting BC Hydro. Hydro crews from the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley are also now helping to repair the damage on Vancouver Island and on the Gulf Islands.
The utility said restoring power continues to be a challenge as there are hundreds of outages that crews have to go to individually to make repairs, including restringing hundreds of spans of power lines and replacing power poles and transformers.
Hydro spokeswoman Mora Scott says some customers on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands may be without power through to Boxing Day because of the length of time it will take to repair the damage.
BC Hydro said the storm was one of the worst it had seen in 20 years.
RCMP say it killed a woman in Duncan when it blew a tree down on her tent. It also shutdown Nanaimo’s water treatment plant, and it destroyed a 30-metre section of White Rock’s pier.
Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands were among the hardest hit areas, with hundreds of downed trees blocking roads and preventing hydro crews from completing full damage assessments.
The province’s public safety minister, Mike Farnworth, said emergency operations centres have been activated in affected areas and warming centres have been opened in many communities.
With files from The Canadian Press
CHEK News
