Windy and rainy weather caused problems in parts of the Cowichan Valley on Tuesday.
BC Hydro reported several outages across the region on Tuesday morning, impacting thousands of customers, and numbers rose throughout the afternoon as fire departments were called out to a new scene every 10-15 minutes or so to deal with toppled trees, many of which took down power and other utility lines with them.
The largest outage effected most of the area around Shawnigan Lake, accounting for more than 2,200 customers. Power had been restored to all but 500 of them by 2 p.m.
The Westholme and Crofton areas also saw 2,100 without power on Tuesday afternoon. In Chemainus more than 2,000 customers lost power.
Other outages were reported in Cobble Hill, Cowichan Station, west of Duncan, and in Caycuse and a western portion of Lake Cowichan.
The first outage was reported at 8:44 a.m., and was expected to be restored by noon. Crews were dispatched to restore the rest of the outages as they were reported.
The Duncan Volunteer Fire Department was also called to a bridge on Marshall Road, near Zanatta Vineyards, where a tree had fallen across the road. The fire crew remained on scene until Emcon Services arrived to remove the tree.
