Straight Talk

B.C. Hydro says 500,000 customers lost power as a result of weekend windstorm

by Charlie Smith on August 30th, 2015 at 11:03 AM
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      B.C. Hydro's latest PDF document runs for 85 pages. And it paints a picture of a massive disruption caused by yesterday's windstorm across the south coast of B.C.

      In alphabetical order, it goes through municipality after municipality, listing the blocks and number of customers affected.

      B.C. Hydro has revealed that the windstorm cut off electricity to 500,000 customers, most of whom live in the Lower Mainland.

      By this morning, it's estimated that it's been reduced to 187,000.

      "Crews from across the province have worked through the night to restore power to tens of thousands of customers, and continue to make progress," BC. Hydro said in a statement. "As we work to restore power, public safety issues are addressed first."

      B.C. Hydro's website went down yesterday, which made it even more difficult for ratepayers to figure out what was going on.

      Some of the worst-hit areas from the B.C. Hydro document appear to be Maple Ridge and Surrey.

      But Vancouver and the North Shore also didn't get off unscathed.

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      Comments

      4 Comments

      Will

      Aug 30, 2015 at 11:10am

      Power came back on in my part of Maple Ridge yesterday afternoon.

      BC Hydro refuses to upgrade, underground power lines

      Aug 30, 2015 at 11:16am

      Yet again we see the results of BC Hydro refusing to take proactive measures to make our power distribution network more resilient.
      Other cities, including Toronto, have been busy burying power lines for decades. In Vancouver, this issue is literally 'buried' because of the so-called 'costs' involved to BC Hydro.
      Do we need a similar outage in the middle of winter before action is taken to upgrade our electrical distribution network?

      Dianne

      Aug 30, 2015 at 9:46pm

      Hydro says the power is on at our home BUT IT ISNT and we cant get through on their telephone lines to correct them..it just rings and rings and rings. So whats next? This is the second day/night.

      Xander Davis

      Aug 31, 2015 at 1:24pm

      But we all have "smart meters" and Hydro assured us that the meters would tell them when and where there is a power outage.

      Yes?