A massive storm surged through the B.C. Interior on Friday, Aug. 23, bringing in squalls with heavy rain, wind and powerful thunder and lightning.
Although any precipitation is welcome during another year of drought and wildfires, the storm created havoc along the Highway 5 corridor in the North Thompson Valley. Falling trees brought down powerlines, resulting in lengthy power outages in the Little Fort, Clearwater, Chu Chua and Dunn Lake areas.
BC Hydro crews worked through the night and remain on site throughout the North Thompson, steadily repairing damage and restoring power. The BC Hydro website lists the causes for the outages as mainly lightning, trees down across wires, and wires down.
Officials in the North Thompson are praising the hard work of Hydro crews assigned to these restoration jobs in challenging storm conditions.
"While elected officials will have follow-ups with a BC Hydro liaison for future improvements, I want to thank crews for the hard work in potentially dangerous situations and adverse weather," said Thompson-Nicola Regional District (TNRD) Area "A" director Usoff Tsao.
"I am hopeful that future large-scale projects coming to the valley will provide opportunities to 'piggyback' a looped system for better grid resiliency."
A recent power outage in the District of Clearwater which was supposed to last for six hours so that a damaged transmission line could be repaired ended up lasting 20 hours, which left Clearwater mayor Merlin Blackwell unimpressed. The unexpectedly lengthy outage caused the reservoir for the district's water supply to drop to a critical level that electric pumps could not keep up with.
"We have back-up generators that are apparently stuck in customs," said Blackwell. "They were supposed to be here in June, but have been delayed. We are now on a boil water advisory as our water supply is replenished." Water will continue to be tested until it is approved by Interior Health.
Blackwell feels there needs to be earlier and improved communication in the future from BC Hydro. "If we get good info, we can last a long time on reservoirs. The missing pieces were the delay in notification that this outage would be longer than six hours and the fact that our generators weren’t here yet. Either one would’ve got us through the outage without issue."
Barriere mayor Ward Stamer feels that the Clearwater, Simpcw First Nation village of Chu Chua, and nearby Dunn Lake issues with the recent power outage points to "deficiencies in BC Hydro's infrastructure" and their identification of "deteriorating assets and access to those assets."
"Twenty hours without power and the cause is a bad pole or tower is squarely on BC Hydro's shoulders," said Stamer. "When weather impacts power services that's one thing, as we saw Friday night with freak winds and multiple trees on power lines.
"It's totally preventable if it's an asset deficiency that wasn't detected or worse, if a decision was made not to repair or replace because of poor management. Either way, back-up power is necessary to protect critical infrastructure."
Stamer noted that Barriere has back-up power sources in place for water, sewer and emergency services should unexpected or prolonged outages occur.
"It seems these outages are occurring with an increased frequency, and BC Hydro seems reluctant to share critical infrastructure information when it comes to North Thompson Valley needs, now and into the future."
Jill Hayward, TNRD director for Area "O" in the Lower Thompson, is grateful following Friday's storm.
"Folks in the North Thompson Valley have been hoping for a good rain for months. I don't think we were quite expecting the voracity of the one we got on Friday night, but it certainly was a good rain!
"A big thank you to all our first responders, fire brigades and valley residents who braved the weather to put out lightning-caused fires, move branches and trees from roadways, and make sure their neighbours were okay. Thanks also to the BC Hydro guys who were out there within hours, and are still out there trying to clean up the mess."
The BC Hydro website asks customers to be prepared for power outages and emergency situations that can occur at any time. It also advises residents to never touch a downed power line, remain at least 10 metres (the length of a city bus) back from a downed line, and call 9-1-1.
