UPDATE: Nearly 13,000 customers have regained power on Vancouver Island, according to BC Hydro.
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While the Sunshine Coast has some outages, Vancouver Island still has many communities without power.
That comes from the Manager of Community Relations for BC Hydro Ted Olynyk, saying as of right now, the east side of Vancouver Island has been hit hard by the ongoing windstorm.
“We have about 80,000 customers still without power on the Island,” said Olynyk. “At the peak we had about 150,000 customers without power on the Island.”
He says Victoria, Sooke, Duncan, Nanaimo, Ladysmith, Parksville, Qualicum, and Courtenay had the biggest number of outages, with over 67,000 customers without power as of this afternoon.
For the Sunshine Coast, the outage numbers are at less than 300 from Powell River and Sechelt.
To help customers, Olynyk says Hydro brought in crews from the Lower Mainland and plans to bring more crews to help with restoration.
“Whether it’s 2,000 customers or 20 customers, if a tree has taken the line down, it’s still going to take the same time to remove the tree and make repairs,” said Olynyk.
“We hope to have the numbers fall pretty good over the next little while. Our goal is to bring as many customers as we can at one time, so we’ll see the numbers drop substantially when repairs come to fruition, but this will be a multi-day event. We’ll have customers out overnight in some areas.”
For what to do at this time, Olynyk recommends visiting Hydro’s website if you are able to get information on when power will come back in your area, which can vary depending on how much damage crews encounter when they arrive.
He adds it’s up to individual customers how well they can deal with the loss of power.
“We hope to provide the best information we can and then people can make the best decisions for themselves.”
