Tuesday September 8, 2020 ~ SOUTH ISLAND, BC
by Mary P Brooke ~ Island Social Trends
Labour Day Monday delivered strong gusts of wind around south Vancouver Island. It was otherwise clear skies, blue and bright. Gusts were sudden and seemingly selective, which made the whole experience seem rather odd without the backdrop of a rainstorm.
One flower pot or one lawn chair tipped over for some, but full power outage for others.
The strange weather was a remnant of the typhoons experienced further south in the US in recent deaths, one meteorologist explained on CTV News this morning.
Overall, BC Hydro repair crews had an active day. The strong wind bursts caused some downed power lines. As crews were pulled back off from an otherwise non-stormy Labour Day Monday, there was steady attention to repairs through Monday evening into today.
Outage locations:
Locally to Langford, a power line down in Langford sparked a brush fire, producing a bit of smoke. A downed line and fire near a construction project shut down Sooke Road for several hours on Monday. The fire-related outage that started at 3:39 pm on Labour Day is still affecting 11 customers as of 9 am this morning.
Yesterday’s outage saw about 1,500 BC Hydro customer locations without power in Central Saanich, Highlands, Saanich and View Royal for about 2.5 hours in the early evening.
For areas of Colwood, Langford and Metchosin there were 1,884 hydro customers without power for about 2.5 hours.
Up to as many as 5,500 customers were without power in the Sooke and Juan de Fuca areas west of Sooke yesterday, some still awaiting restoration in those rural areas today. Trees down on wires in the Otter Point area saw 130 local customers without power. Near the Sooke Region Museum the power was out for 10 customers on Belvista Road between 10:30 pm and 1 am.
There were smaller-impact outages around the Duncan area, some still to be restored.
Regional scope:
In the South Vancouver Island area the total customers affected in the past 14 days comes to 20,246, according to BC Hydro this Tuesday morning.