Hydro and municipal repair crews were scrambling across the Arrow Lakes and Slocan Valley on Wednesday to clean up after Tuesday’s windstorm downed power lines and blocked roads.
On Wednesday morning, hundreds of customers in Silverton, New Denver, and Nakusp were still in the dark, though service had been restored to much of Nakusp. Work crews were in place trying to deal with the flood of problems.
The furious windstorm covered highways with a thick coating of leaves and branches, snapped trees like matchsticks and caused more to fall across phone and power lines along Highway 6. A hydro pole near Box Lake was spotted on fire after an insulator was snapped off and shorted out.
The public works manager for the Village of Nakusp said there were about 20 downed trees in the village proper. One of the most disturbing was a tree that snapped in half, causing a huge branch to fall into a children’s playground outside a daycare centre. No children were outside when the tree fell.
There were no reports of any injuries as a result of the storm.
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