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Storms knock out power across city, region

Hydro crews were still busy restoring power to thousands of customers Sunday after a major windstorm swept across the province on Sunday. Bob Gammer, B.C. Hydro's Community Relations Manager for northern B.C.
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Power outages struck across Prince George and the surrounding area Saturday.

Hydro crews were still busy restoring power to thousands of customers Sunday after a major windstorm swept across the province on Sunday.

Bob Gammer, B.C. Hydro's Community Relations Manager for northern B.C., said Sunday 1,645 customers in the greater Prince George region were still without power as of 2 p.m. Sunday afternoon with the hopes of plugging everyone in by 11 p.m. Sunday. 

"We have many crews arriving from out of town so we can deploy them to speed up the restoration," said Gammer. "It was a big windstorm that came in from off the coast and 45,000 customers across the province."

The vast area stretched from south of Vernon all the way to Salmon Arm and north to Cache Creek, 100 Mile House, Williams Lake, Quesnel and Prince George. It also impacted Vanderhoof, Fort St. James and Burns Lake to the west and north to Fort St. John. The north end of Vancouver Island was also affected. 

Just under 9,770 customers were located in the Prince George areas. B.C. Hydro reported large areas affected include: 2534 customers without power west of Creekside Way, south of Ospika Boulevard; 1,683 from northeast of Highway 16, west of Highway 97 and south of University Way; and 2,666 north of Westcreek Road.

Prince George Fire Rescue said Otway Road was closed in both directions near the Otway nordic ski area Saturday as a result of downed power lines. 

Historically, Gammer said B.C. experiences a few large outages every year.

Most recently, 10,000 people were without power last month in Kitimat when a major snowstorm hit the small, coastal community. 

In January, 2014, a windstorm knocked the power out in an area that stretched from Haida Gwaii all the way to Fort Nelson where 22,000 people were impacted.

Residents who are still without power by this morning are asked to call 1-888-769-3766.