About 1,400 FortisBC customers immediately surrounding Creston were affected by power outages following a Friday evening windstorm. For some, such as many in West Creston, the outage lasted about 48 hours, with power returning at 4 p.m. Sunday.
“Our crews were challenged because there was a great deal of debris from the storm,” said FortisBC communications director Joyce Wagenaar from her Surrey office, adding that damage to poles and structures made the task more difficult.
On Monday, crews were still working on several areas of damage near Creston, as some customers had specific damage to their service. Residents of Wynndel’s Bathie Road, who hadn’t lost power, had their service shut off for two hours on Monday while crews removed debris that could have later caused an outage.
About 7,000 customers in the Kootenays were affected, with service to Ymir, Christina Lake, Crawford Bay, Coffee Creek and Kaslo, as well as parts of Creston and Grand Forks being restored on the weekend.
“Since Friday, we have brought in additional crews to try and work through the vast amount of storm damage and restore service as quickly as possible,” said Wagenaar in a press release.
Fallen trees destroyed the structure housing the West Creston Fire Protection Society’s fire trucks, although most of the equipment was salvaged.
FortisBC reminds residents to never touch a downed power line, but to report an outage, downed wires or poles at 1-866-436-7847.