An early morning storm whipped up powerful wind gusts that toppled trees and left thousands of people in Prince George, Vanderhoof, Fort St. James and Burns Lake without power Thursday.
The BC Hydro website listed 31 areas in the Prince George area and more than 3,000 customers were affected by power outages. The VLA area in the southeast section of the Bowl near Queensway was especially hard-hit and the wind left hundreds of residences and businesses without electricity.
The storm delayed the opening of Sacred Heart School on Patricia Boulevard until 10 a.m. Thursday.
A wide swath of rural residences northeast of the city towards Shelley and Giscome remained without power this morning. The outage map is available here. https://www.bchydro.com/power-outages/app/outage-map.html#outage=2110721
BC Hydro crews were called in from areas less affected by the storm to assists local repair crews working to remove trees and branches from affected power lines. In the Central Interior, 1,800 customers were still without power as of 8:45 a.m.
All told, 12,000 customers across the province lost their power in the storm, including 6,800 customers in northern B.C., 1,200 in the Lower Mainland, 1,000 in Thompson-Shuswap and 250 in Vancouver Island/Gulf Islands.
“We’re having a province-wide wind event and we were on the brunt of the first wave, especially in the centre of the province,” said Mike Kellett, BC Hydro’s community relations manager for northern B.C.
“It’s sounding like the southern Interior will probably get some weather later today as the system moves through. Crews have been out since (Wednesday) evening addressing the outages. Some of the outages, due to the nature of the damage to the infrastructure and the location, will take a bit longer (to repair). Often that has to do with the terrain and literally how long it will take to get from where the crews to the site and how easy it is to access that site.”
An outage in Fort St. James Wednesday night knocked out power for 2,000 customers and Kellett said BC Hydro had that problem fixed by 3:30 a.m. Thursday.
Environment Canada issued a wind warning at 5:17 a.m. Thursday for Prince George, Vanderhoof , Fort St. James and the surrounding area with wind gusts of 90 kilometres per hour and sustained winds of 60 km/hr. By that time, a lot of the damage had already been done. Citizen editor Neil Godbout woke up at his house in the Hart at about 3:30 a.m. after a dead coniferous tree from his neighbour’s yard fell onto his travel trailer.
As of about 10 a.m., the wind warning had ended and the storm is moving south towards the Okanagan region. There is risk of a thundershowers in Prince George later this morning.
Kellett warned people to stay at least 10 metres away from any downed power lines and assume they are charged with power. Kellett said many trees have been weakened by dry conditions this fall and customers should watch for dead or dying trees that are near buildings or power lines and remove hazards before they become a problem. With winter approaching, it’s a good idea to keep candles, flashlights and alternate heat sources available in the event of a power failure.
More safety tips are available on the BC Hydro website https://www.bchydro.com/safety-outages.html
