A powerful windstorm that dumped heavy snow on northern and central parts of the province Friday left 110,000 BC Hydro customers without electricity and Prince George did not escaped unscathed.
While most of the power outages were in the southern Interior and Lower Mainland, about 1,000 residences and businesses in and around Vanderhoof, Prince George and Quesnel were affected.
Snow that battered the Bulkley Valley and Peace regions knocked trees into power lines in Chetwynd, Dawson Creek and made travel treacherous in the higher elevations of Highway 97 with as much as 15 centimetres accumulating throughout the day. Wind gusts of between 70 and 90 kilometres per hour were reported.
"Similar to earlier this week, when we had windstorm outages that affected about 13,000 customers sweeping down from the north coast along the Highway 16 communities through the Central Interior in Prince George down to 100 Mile House and Kamloops, we saw about 110,00 customers affected and we've got more than half of those back on," said BC Hydro spokesman Bob Gammer.
"It was certainly spread over a large area but customer-wise (Prince George) had a relatively small percentage in the big picture of what happened today."
As of 4 p.m. Friday, just one customer in Prince George was still without power. Four BC Hydro crews in the city were kept busy all day fixing downed power lines or removing trees.
"The snow has been the problem up there in the Dawson Creek area and they still have just under 2,400 customers out," said Gammer.
The storm canceled ferry crossings between Tsawwassen and Swartz Bay and Horseshoe Bay and Departure Bay.
Gammer reminds people to stay away from downed power lines and wait for trained crews to arrive. To report a problem call 911 first, then call BC Hydro's 24/7 response team at 1-888-Power On (779-3766).
"You have to assume those lines are still live so stay back at least 10 metres and we don't want anybody helping us out," said Gammer. "Some people may be tempted to get out with their chain saw and get a tree off of a power line and we just want people to stay back and leave it to the professionals to clear those faults on the line."
The storm moved quickly through the province and skies in Prince George began to clear late in the afternoon. After a gloomy week, sunshine is predicted for the next six days with seasonably high daytime temperatures and cool nights.
Saturday's high is expected to reach 5 C after an overnight low of 1 C. On Sunday, the mercury is predicted to climb to 3 C after an overnight low of -8 C. Monday's predicted high is 1 C.
