BC Hydro crews are aiming to have the lights on by this evening for most customers following Tuesday evening’s windstorm, though thousands remain without power on the North Shore thanks to damage to the Capilano substation.
Wind gusts recorded at Point Atkinson in West Vancouver reached 98 kilometres per hour, strong enough to send a cascade of trees and branches down onto hydro lines.
At the peak of the storm around 6 p.m., 110,000 customers were without power in the Lower Mainland, Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island. The North Shore was particularly hard hit with 20,000 customers out in North Vancouver and 3,000 out in West Vancouver, according to Mora Scott, BC Hydro spokeswoman.
As of Wednesday morning 14,000 homes and business remained without power on the North Shore, about 11,000 of them due to the Capilano substation repairs.
The outages have caused a number of school closures. Braemar, Canyon Heights, Cleveland, Highlands, Larson, Montroyal, Norgate and Westview elementary schools are all closed for the day, as are Carson Graham, Handsworth, Mountainside secondary schools and North Vancouver Distributed Learning.
Vancouver accountant Sean Wilson posted a video on Twitter showing blue explosions lighting up the night sky on the North Shore.
What are the blue flashes happening in Vancouver harbor? @CBCVancouver @CityofVancouver pic.twitter.com/TM8Wp0rPwL
— Sean Wilson (@SeanDGwilson) November 18, 2015
“What happened in that situation is trees or branches came down on our lines and it basically, those flashes are each phase going out,” Scott said. “Our crews were able to locate the problem for the substation outage from the air this morning and crews have begun repairs. A large tree came down and broke the top part off of a transmission structure. We are continuing to patrol the line to see if there are trees down at any other point on the line.”
The power utility is asking customers to be patient as they have called in extra crews in hopes of getting power restored by this evening.
“It could be earlier, it could be later. We just don’t have an exact time yet,” Scott said.
The other outages on the North Shore are much smaller and more localized, meaning they fall lower on the priority list.
“We have about 50 crews out there working right now. About 25 BC Hydro crews and 25 contractor crews. We’ve also brought in some of our crews from the interior. They’re basically just going out and trying to get everybody back up,” she said.
As of 9 a.m., there were still 300 individual outages to get to in the region, each requiring a crew’s attention.
“We’re hoping to have the majority of people back up by this evening,” Scott said.
If someone spots a downed line, they should stay at least 10 metres back and call 9-1-1 immediately. Residents looking for more info can 1-888-PowerOn or visit bchydro.com/outages.
