High winds on Sunday afternoon knocked down trees and disrupted power for a few thousand customers in the Comox Valley area.
“At peak, we had about 3,500 customers out,” says BC Hydro spokesperson Ted Olynyk. “It was pretty windy. It caused a lot of outages.”
The utility reported several incidents in the region, while local firefighters had to respond to several calls regarding trees over power lines. Environment Canada was reporting winds of 40 to 60 km/h during the afternoon.
More than 1,300 customers in Comox lost power in the area west of Andrew Avenue and east of Pritchard. It was reported at 2:45 p.m.
Further north, about 1,400 customers lost power east of Smith Road and north of Cruikshank. It was reported at 1:56 p.m.
Another 187 lost power in the Williams Beach area just before 2:30 p.m. The area affected is bounded by Williams Beach Road, Eagles Drive, Larkin Road and Frances Road.
North of Courtenay, 378 customers in the Saratoga Beach area lost power just after 1 p.m. east of Island Highway, south of Kuhushan Road and north of Wilfred Road.
A few more customers in Courtenay lost power at Glen Urquhart Drive.
Another 70 customers on Hornby Island were without power south of Slade Road and west of Hughes Road. The cause was a tree over the wires.
Other locations included Butchers Road, and the Fern Road-Bates Road area.
Comox Fire Rescue was particularly busy all afternoon responding to calls related to the windstorm.
“We were going for about five hours,” says assistant fire chief Jim Lariviere.
There were downed trees that took out power lines, blocked driveways or landed on homes.
Lariviere says much of the damage was in areas close to the water, which took the brunt of the high waters, but the department did have calls all over.
The Oyster River and Courtenay departments also had to respond to calls. The Courtenay Fire Department says it had a half dozen calls related to wind that had knocked out power.
As of Monday, BC Hydro estimated about 200 customers were waiting for power to be restored. For updates, see bchydro.com.
mike.chouinard@comoxvalleyrecord.comLike us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
