More than 7,600 customers in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows were without power and three people were stuck in elevators after a motor vehicle collision Thursday afternoon.
A grey CUV hit a power pole on Dewdney Trunk Road, near 228th Street, just after 2:30 p.m.
One man was taken to hospital by ambulance, but had been sitting up and was conscious.
A man taken by ambulance after vehicle hits power pole in #MapleRidge was sitting up on stretcher. Dewdney at 228 Street shot in both directions. @MapleRidgeNews pic.twitter.com/gSfWnfrWRQ
— Colleen Flanagan (@ColleenFlanagan) January 9, 2020
The first outage occurred at 2:33 p.m., west of 130th Avenue, east of 132nd Avenue, and north of Sandpiper Avenue.
That knocked out power to 3,540 customers.
A motor vehicle accident has caused a power outage to 4,100 customers in #MapleRidge. Crews will share updates here: https://t.co/rDske7bnQX pic.twitter.com/BwZAGveAdL
— BC Hydro (@bchydro) January 9, 2020
The second outage occurred a minute later, west of 256th Street, north of 116th Avenue and east of 216th Street.
That knocked out power to 4,157 customers in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows.
Hydro crews were at both incidents by 3:45 p.m. Power had yet to be restored to about 2,000 customers as of 6:15 p.m.
It was fully restored by the next morning.
During the outages, Maple Ridge firefighters were called about three people stuck in elevators in apartment buildings along Dewdney Trunk in the downtown area, as well as about alarms ringing.
Maple Ridge fire chief Howard Exner said the collision destroyed the Hydro pole, causing east-west power lines to fall on top of those running north-south.
“It caused a huge power bump and that’s likely what caused the alarms ringing call and two elevator calls,” he added.
Power was also knocked out in Port Coquitlam.
Firefighters were able to free two people from one elevator, and one from the other.
“Everybody’s fine. They were all rescued,” Exner said.
newsroom@mapleridgenews.com
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