Strong wind gusts hit the Cariboo Saturday, downing trees and leaving thousands of people without power.
“Williams Lake’s strong recorded gust was up to 69 kilometres an hour and sustained wind speeds were as high as 40 km/hr.,” said Environment Canada meteorologist Lisa Coldwells Monday.
The windstorm, she explained, was caused by a Pacific frontal system crossing the province in a southwest to northeasterly line, from the Coast heading toward the Peace.
Accompanying the front was a strong change in temperatures, with a lot of warm air, she explained.
In Williams Lake the highs reached 13.1 C at the airport.
“As the front moved through it generated all that wind,” Coldwells added. “In Kamloops at 1 p.m. the wind gusted up to 87 km/hr.”
BC Hydro’s communications manager Dave Mosure said at the peak 45,000 customers were without hydro as a result of the storm.
“The windstorm caused trees to fall on lines and we had phase slapping where if the winds are strong enough and heavily sustained enough they can blow the protective coating on hydro poles and cause lines to slap together,’ Mosure said.
Many local residents were dealt a first-hand blow by the storm.
Seniors Alan and Joan McLeod who live on Kinglet Road in Russett Bluff, a few kilometres outside the city limits, were sitting eating a late lunch when a large double-trunked Douglas-Fir tree in their yard began to lean.
“I saw it lean and then crash down onto our roof,” Joan said as she and Alan stood outside assessing the damage afterwards.
In the 24 years the McLeods have lived there, they’ve seen wind storms, but nothing as strong as Saturday’s.
“We’ve never had a Douglas-Fir come down,” Joan said.
Across the street from the McLeods, Ernie Hrynkewich and his young neighbour Colton Vickers stood next to the roots of a Blue Spruce that came down in Ernie’s yard during the storm.
“It was about sixty feet high,” Ernie said of the Spruce. “We saw the corner come up and up beneath it and then the tree came down wrecking a large flower box and part of the fence.”
Further up Kinglet another couple were also waiting for BC Hydro to arrive.
A large tree came down, knocked out the power line to their home, and the hydro metre.
BC Hydro called in all the crews it could as well as contractors from the Lower Mainland to restore power.
“The area with the most people without power is the Quesnel area and currently we are hoping to have their power restored by 7 p.m. tonight,” Mosure said Monday afternoon.
