Nearly 16,000 North Van residents were left in the dark Thursday morning after the winter windstorm that wreaked havoc across Metro Vancouver temporarily knocked out the Capilano substation.
Overnight, as winds howled up to 98 kilometres an hour and knocked down trees and power lines, approximately 1,100 customers were without power in North Vancouver. About 1,000 were left in the dark in West Vancouver.
But that number spiked significantly Thursday at 9:30 a.m. when the Capilano substation went down and the lights went out for thousands of residents. By 10:30 a.m., BC Hydro had restored power to nearly 12,000 homes in North Vancouver.
BC Hydro spokesperson Mora Scott said the cause of the substation outage was a large tree falling on a transmission line that delivers power to the station.
At the peak of the storm nearly 120,000 customers were without power across Metro Vancouver.
Scott said the number of power outages across the region were in a state of flux.
“I think with this storm what we are seeing is the power will go out, crews will fix it in one area, and then we’ll see an outage in another area.”
“(It was) obviously a pretty intense storm,” said Environment Canada meteorologist Matt MacDonald.”
MacDonald described the storm as a “weather bomb” any time the low pressure centre of a storm drops by 24 millibars in 24 hours. “So the cyclone deepens quite rapidly and as you can imagine the wind fields really jack up as well. That’s when we’re in for a good punch.”
MacDonald said these low-pressure storms typically stay several hundred kilometres off-shore and the front just passes by causing less intense wind and rain, but this time it tracked inland.
The high-wind forecast prompted Environment Canada to issue early wind warnings before the storm hit Wednesday evening.
“I think even we were surprised – we were expecting gusts to 80 or 90 (kilometres per hour). Point Atkinson (in West Vancouver) was the winner on the South Coast (at 98 km/h),” said MacDonald.
Some North Vancouver residents reported seeing exploding power line transformers. “It is typical in a windstorm to have trees and branches come in contact with our lines and that might be what people are referring to,” said Scott.
BC Hydro stressed that if you do see a downed line you should stay at least 10 metres back, about the length of a bus, and call 9-1-1 immediately.
“They should really be treating that situation like an emergency,” added Scott.
Scott said on Thursday it was “all hands on deck” as crews worked to repair broken poles and remove trees and branches from power lines.
City of North Vancouver spokeswoman Connie Rabold said some street and traffic lights were knocked out overnight but by early morning Thursday most had been restored. Only two minor tree issues were reported.
Jeff Bush, assistant fire chief for West Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services, said his department responded to 13 storm-related calls overnight, including two small ground fires caused by “energized” power poles.
Bush said it was relatively calm night compared to the Aug. 29 wind storm that resulted in 27 calls in the span of just a few hours.
Jeff McDonald, a spokesperson for the District of West Vancouver, said a seawalk cleanup is underway and the municipality is prioritizing calls from residents about tree issues.
At Lighthouse Park a few large tress fell and district crews have responded and are being assisted by tree contractors to help clean up. Staff are also inspecting piers and floats for damage.
