Residents are asked to be prepared as a 12-hour power outage was scheduled to take place on June 4.
BC Hydro has been planning this outage for at least a month because of the need to do an extensive refurbishment on the transmission line that runs the substations at Nakusp and New Denver.
Areas affected by the power outage are Burton, East Arrow Park, Glenbank, Nakusp, New Denver, and Summit Lake Rosebery. Fauquier is not affected because they’re fed from the Monashee substation.
Crews will be replacing many hydro poles and a lot of the hardware along the line.
Mayor Karen Hamling had asked that two six-hour outages take place instead of one 12-hour outage, but because of the nature of the work, that wasn’t possible.
“The tough thing with this type of work is that we’re bringing in multiple crews in an effort to get as much done as possible in one outage,” said Jen Walker-Larsen, communications advisor with BC Hydro. “When you’re trying to mobilize multiple crews and equipment at different locations, and there’s a certain amount of time to get everybody geared up and it takes a certain amount of time at the end to get everyone demobilized and back down, so the 12 hours is an efficient chunk of time that lets you get the most amount of work done.”
Some places in the village will run on generators, like the Arrow Lakes Hospital. It’s unsure what businesses such as Overwaitea Foods or the K2 Rotor Lodge plan on doing.
The timing of the outage is a challenge for many. Tourist season has already begun in the area, and their reaction to the outage is unknown.
“When people come to town they’re not going to be able to get gas, and I don’t know if they’re going to be able to get food, so it’s going to be interesting to see how that goes down, but there’s not much we can do about that,” said Hamling.
The most important thing residents should do to prepare for the outage is to turn off lights and unplug any and all appliances and electronics. This will protect them from any damage that may occur while work on the lines is being done.
