British Columbia's Crown utility says power went out for some 300,000 homes and businesses Monday as strong winds battered coastal areas and parts of the Interior, and the lights may remain out for some until Tuesday.
A statement from BC Hydro says the winds have caused "significant damage" across Vancouver Island, the Sunshine Coast and the Lower Mainland.
The utility says in a release around 39,000 customers were still without power late Monday night, while about 253,000 other affected customers have had their power restored.
Bulletins on the BC Hydro website say the utility is asking customers along the south coast to "prepare for the possibility of being without power overnight."
It says all available BC Hydro and contractor crews will work overnight to restore power as quickly and safety as possible.
It says crews will prioritize outages involving downed lines that could pose a risk to safety, then focus on restoring power to critical and municipal services, followed by outages affecting large numbers of customers, then smaller outages.
BC Hydro says Surrey, North Vancouver, Victoria and Sechelt were among the areas hardest hit by the outages caused by winds that triggered warnings from Environment Canada about gusts reaching speeds of up to 100 kilometres an hour in Metro Vancouver.
The utility says it had been planning for the storm, and all of its available crews and contractors were working to repair the damage and restore power.
A multi-year drought has weakened trees across the province, making them more susceptible to wind, and the storm has knocked down many dead or damaged trees and branches over its electrical equipment, BC Hydro says in a statement.
Most of Environment Canada’s weather warnings were dropped late Monday afternoon, but strong winds and heavy rain remained in the evening forecast for all of Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley through to Hope.
Winter storm warnings and bulletins were also in effect for several stretches of highway in southern B.C., where the weather office said strong winds and heavy snow could create "near-zero visibilities and treacherous driving conditions."
The warnings covered the Coquihalla Highway from Hope to Merritt and Highway 3 from the Paulson summit area to the Kootenay Pass.
The snow was expected to taper off overnight, with accumulations ranging from about 20 centimetres at the Coquihalla summit to about 40 centimetres along the Kootenay Pass by Tuesday, the warning bulletin said.
Lower-level special weather statements were in effect Monday for the Coquihalla Highway between Merritt and Kamloops, as well as Highway 3 from Hope to Princeton and the Okanagan Connector from Merritt to Kelowna, where the forecast called for snowfall ranging from five to 10 centimetres.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.
Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press
