Now is the time not only to prepare your home for the winter season, but your family as well, should a winter storm leave you without power.
“We are encouraging our customers to always be prepared for power outages.” Bob Gammer Northern Community Relations Manager for BC Hydro said, “In fact we say that you should have an emergency kit to get you through the first 72 hours.”
Gammer noted some people find it hard to believe a power outage would last that long but when you have exceptional storms like the one in the Lower Mainland and Southern Interior, suddenly 72 hours is a reality for a lot of people so it’s important to be prepared.
When there’s a severe snowfall , Gammer said it can really slow down the restoration effort.
“Should that occur, we ask customer to be patient with us, give us a little more time, certainly call in the outage if you are without power. Don’t assume your neighbour has phoned it in, call us at 1-800-bchydro to report your outage and location. Again going back to the emergency kit, knowing that with heavy snow it’s going to take longer to restore power in many cases, not every case, but its good to have that emergency handy and that you know where it is, and you can access it quickly. ”
To find out what to put in that emergency kit, check out BC Hydro.com/safety.