Update 3 pm by R Dyok: A windstorm that blew through Northern BC this morning is still working its way down through the Cariboo according to BC Hydro.
Community relations coordinator Dave Mosure said they had approximately 10,000 customers across the region without service due to the storm.
“Communities impacted included 100 Mile, Williams Lake, Quesnel, Prince George, Vanderhoof, and Burns Lake,” Mosure said Tuesday afternoon. “To break it out for 100 Mile crews have 20 locations that they have to attend to make repairs and the number of customers is approximately 2,500. For Williams Lake, they’ve got it down to five locations that the crews have to make repairs and the customer countdown to approximately 2,000.”
“We’ve got BC Hydro crews and contractor crews that are going to be working around the clock until everybody is back,” Mosure added.
Environment Canada said the gusty conditions can be blamed on a cold front sweeping through the region.
“I’m seeing things range from as high as maybe 60, 61 km/h at the stations at Quesnel,” said meteorologist Doug Lundquist. “But the highest one I’m finding looks like it’s down towards Clinton where I think they’re getting gusts towards 85 km/h.”
Lundquist said the storm is currently on the decline, and that winds will decrease throughout this evening and by tomorrow morning it should be fairly calm.
If you are a BC Hydro customer and are currently without power, Mosure asks you to remain patient.
“We appreciate everybody’s patience for that matter,” Mosure said. “We will be updating the BC Hydro website under power outages as best we can with the information that we get.”
Previous story by P Matthews: Several power outages that occurred earlier this morning continue to affect hundreds of BC Hydro customers from 100 Mile House to Quesnel and the Chilcotin as well.
Some include:
- In 100 Mile House 560 customers are affected South of Watch Lake Road, 316 South East of Green Lake Road, 269 North-South of Cariboo Highway 97, 172 North-East-West of Horse Lake Road south of Northshore Dr and 147 customers affected South of 103 Mile Lake RD, North of Little Fort Highway 24.
- In Williams Lake outages have affected 1228 customers West of Dog Creek Road, 460 North-South-East-West of Highway 20, 389 customers Likely Rd, Moorehead Rd, Hunt RD, Keithly Creek Rd, Likely Rd, 6100 Block Cedar Creek Rd, 5000 Block Boyko Rd and 6300 Block Harmes Rd and Creek Rd.
- In Quesnel 586 customers West of Maple Heights Rd, South of Graham Ave, North of Red Bluff Rd, East of Rolph St, 341 customers 1000 block Gilbert NO 2 Rd, 1000 block Gilbert NO 2 rd, 700-900 block Grevatt Rd, 5800 block Shannon Rd, 1700 block Cooper Rd, 9400-9700 block Harris Rd, 9600 block Koh Rd, 9600 block Mountainview Lane, 1400 block Harrington Rd, Nako Rd. 227 customers without power West of Long Bar Rd, North of Nazko Rd, South of Paradise Rd and 183 North-South-East-West of Fraser Rd.
Some of the causes of the outages being reported by BC Hydro, wire down and tree down across wires, with some under investigation.
Environment Canada is forecasting winds throughout the Cariboo to be 40 gusting to 60km/h today.
Something going on in the Cariboo you think people should know about?
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