Power outages are happening as high winds tear through Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows on Tuesday afternoon.
BC Hydro crews are running to numerous calls, many involving trees on power lines. Across the Lower Mainland and Sunshine Coast there are about 41,000 outages at 4 p.m., and another 45,000 on Vancouver Island.
Earlier outages have been repaired, but more are happening. There is a large outage impacting 1,849 residences and business customers just east of 240th Street, south of Dewdney Trunk Road, extending past Websters corners. Crews are estimated to arrive on the scene buy 4:30 p.m.
A crew will be heading to an outage caused by a tree down across our wires, impacting 1,849 customers in #MapleRidge. They’ll share updates here: https://t.co/X28hJEAOAk pic.twitter.com/I4qK9UKXvJ
— BC Hydro (@bchydro) October 13, 2020
There is another large outage in Silver Valley that has 1,127 Hydro customers in the dark. Hydro estimates power will be back on at 4 p.m. There are three smaller outages in Silver Valley.
And there is a large power outage impacting 188 customers in downtown Pitt Meadows, between Baynes and Harris Roads. Crews are estimated to arrive there at 5 p.m.
At 11 a.m. on Oct. 13, Environment Canada issued a wind warning for the region, with widespread gusty winds expected over Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley, and Howe Sound today.
“Widespread, strong, gusty southwesterly winds of 60 km/h gusting to 90 km/h are expected across Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley this afternoon and early evening,” said the alert.
“High winds may toss loose objects or cause tree branches to break. Avoid wooded areas to prevent injury from falling trees or branches. Campers should move to sturdy shelters.”
Wind warnings are issued when there is a significant risk of damaging winds. Winds are expected to ease this evening.
The public can monitor alerts and forecasts issued by Environment Canada. To report severe weather, send an email to BCstorm@canada.ca or tweet reports using #BCStorm.
ncorbett@mapleridgenews.com
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