The province’s electricity provider says 95 per cent of the customers cut off by Monday’s windstorm have been reconnected to the power grid.
As of 6 a.m. Tuesday, about 16,000 customers were without power, with 11,000 of these in the Lower Mainland and on the Sunshine Coast. BC Hydro adds the remaining customers are on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands.
“Crews have been working around-the-clock to restore power, replacing dozens of spans of power line as well power poles and other electrical equipment,” Hydro said Tuesday.
In total, more than 290,000 customers were impacted by the storm that downed power lines and trees, BC Hydro explained on Monday.
“Crews will continue to work throughout the day and BC Hydro expects to have the majority of the remaining customers restored today – with the possible exception of small pockets of customers in areas with significant damage,” the electricity provider said.
“BC Hydro wants to thank its customers for their patience, and it will continue to provide updated estimates for power restoration as they become available at bchydro.com/outages.”
BC Hydro spokesperson Kyle Donaldson told 1130 NewsRadio Monday that many of the outages may have been caused, indirectly, by climate conditions throughout the year.
“We’re in the middle of a multi-year drought here in British Columbia, and the vegetation is extremely dry right now. This is still very early on in storm season, and many of the trees, they still have leaves on them. In some cases, all it takes is just a little bit of wind to blow a tree over and make contact with a power line, and that results in a power outage for customers,” said Donaldson.
He says another outage in White Rock was caused by patio furniture blowing off a balcony and making contact with electrical infrastructure Monday morning. As a result, Donaldson said, around 14,000 customers in the White Rock area were taken off the grid.
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