Most of the Comox Valley was in the dark as a strong storm lashed the Island Sunday.
Nearly 16,000 Comox Valley homes were without power between 7 and 8 p.m., at the peak of the storm, according to BC Hydro spokesperson Ted Olynyk.
“It seemed like all but one area was hit with an outage,” Olynyk said Monday morning. “It was a very big storm for the Comox Valley.”
Olynyk added BC Hydro crews worked throughout the night and he received updates from the line manager regularly into the morning hours.
“It was quite amazing the crews were able to get pretty much all the power back on except for about 1,000 customers last night. Now, we’re down to a few hundred,” he continued. “It was great work last night to bring that many customers back on.”
Olynyk expected all power to be restored Monday, but noted it could take longer for a few customers if their service lines (line connecting a home to BC Hydro line) were knocked out.
He added the intensity of Sunday’s storm was unusual for this time of year.
“It was a pretty powerful storm. This is something we’d normally expect in November. Certainly wouldn’t expect a storm of this intensity in September,” he said. “I know that north of Nanaimo the wind speeds clocked at over 120 (kilometres per hour).”
Meanwhile, BC Ferries spokesperson Deborah Marshall noted the storm caused 40 sailing cancellations on nine routes throughout BC Ferries’ fleet.
Sailings between Little River and Powell River were suspended at 3:15 p.m. and two round trips were cancelled. Two round trips were also cancelled on this route midday Saturday due to high wind.
Five sailings were cancelled on the Departure Bay to Horseshoe Bay route and service was suspended on the Duke Point to Tsawwassen route at 8:15 p.m., cancelling four sailings.
“Safety is our No. 1 priority and on occasion it is necessary to delay or cancel service during severe wind storms,” said Marshall.
All routes were back to their regular schedules by Monday morning.
For more information about power outages, visit www.bchydro.com/outages. For more information about BC Ferries sailings, visit www.bcferries.com.
writer@comoxvalleyrecord.com
