A windstorm that blew through Northern BC this morning is still working its way down through the Cariboo according to BC Hydro.
Community relations coordinator Dave Mosure said they had approximately 10,000 customers across the region without service due to the storm.
“Communities impacted included 100 Mile, Williams Lake, Quesnel, Prince George, Vanderhoof, and Burns Lake,” Mosure said Tuesday afternoon. “To break it out for 100 Mile crews have 20 locations that they have to attend to make repairs and the number of customers is approximately 2,500. For Williams Lake, they’ve got it down to five locations that the crews have to make repairs and the customer countdown approximately down to 2,000.”
“We’ve got BC Hydro crews and contractor crews that are going to be working around the clock until everybody is back,” Mosure added.
Environment Canada said the gusty conditions can be blamed on a cold front sweeping through the region.
“I’m seeing things range from as high as maybe 60, 61 km/h at the stations at Quesnel,” said meteorologist Doug Lundquist. “But the highest one I’m finding looks like it’s down towards Clinton where I think they’re getting gusts towards 85 km/h.”
Lundquist said the storm is currently on the decline, and that winds will decrease throughout this evening and by tomorrow morning it should be fairly calm.
If you are a BC Hydro customer and are currently without power, Mosure asks you to remain patient.
“We appreciate everybody’s patience for that matter,” Mosure said. “We will be updating the BC Hydro website under power outages as best we can with the information that we get.”
With files from Rebecca Dyok, MyCaribooNow