Gold River Mayor Brad Unger says his community hasn’t seen a dump of snow like this for a decade.
About 30 centimetres has fallen on the North Island town since Saturday night, and the flakes were expected to fly overnight and into Monday.
“It’s a real dump and it’s still snowing,” Unger said Sunday. “But we’re doing OK.”
On top of the snow storm, everyone in Gold River lost power from 9 a.m. to about 1:30 p.m. Saturday, forcing Unger to get creative and cook his grandson breakfast on the barbecue.
Despite the accumulations, Unger said Mainroad Contracting is keeping Highway 28 clear and city crews are plowing town streets.
No serious incidents or emergencies have been reported, he said.
Most of the Island saw a winter blast Sunday, preceded by high winds on Friday and Saturday.
Snow was piling up on the Malahat and along the east coast and north end of Vancouver Island.
Environment Canada said 10 centimetres of snow fell on the Malahat Sunday morning and an additional five to 10 centimetres was expected over the afternoon hours between Goldstream and Mill Bay before tapering off to rain showers in the evening.
An unstable air mass and cooler temperatures are bringing the heavy snow at higher elevations, the government agency said in a weather alert Sunday afternoon.
Emcon Services said it has several plow trucks on the Malahat, saying the snow “was coming down pretty quickly.”
The company recommended not to travel if it’s not necessary.
Drivers should be prepared to adjust driving speeds and use snow tires with the changing road conditions. Rapidly accumulating snow could make travel difficult over some locations, and visibility may be suddenly reduced at times in heavy snow.
Many parts of the Island were being hit with some degree of snowfall. Some areas in Saanich and Langford saw flurries while others like Gold River, Port McNeill and Port Hardy had significant accumulations.
The North Island saw thousands of power outages. B.C. Hydro said about 3,000 customers were without power, with more than half in the Port McNeill-Alert Bay area. Another 900 were in the dark in the Port Hardy area. More than 800 were affected in the Gold River area while Zeballos had about 100 customers hit.
Some of the outages involved fallen trees on wires.
