UPDATE: 3:00 p.m.
Kamloops Fire Rescue says all roads in the city have reopened open after today’s wind storm.
Acting Platoon Captain Dale Geffard says the storm led to power lines coming down in many locations.
“Whether they came down by themselves from the wind or if they were knocked down because we had so many trees blown over as well. We had engines in every area of the city going from call to call, just confirming whether we were dealing with communication lines or energized lines.”
Nearly 9,000 B-C Hydro customers in Kamloops were without power at the height of the storm.
power lines were knocked down all over the city because of wind or trees falling on those lines.
“There maybe slight delays as Hydro controls traffic just for the safety of their employees while they are restoring lines but as far as I know there are no complete closures.”
BC Hydro still reports about 3,183 affected customers in the Juniper Ridge area because a tree is down across the wires. There are also about 250 customers on the North Shore affected by an outage.
As of 3 p.m., there were 87 incidents of power outages in the Thompson/Shuswap, with 21,676 affected customers, a vast majority of which are in the Chase and Salmon Arm area.
UPDATE: 11:55 a.m.
BC Hydro says power is back on for 3,374 customers on the North Shore but remains out for more than 5,000 other customers area – mostly in Valleyview, Dallas Barnhartvale, as well as Heffley Creek.
Listeners say the traffic light is out at Highway 1 and Highland Road in Valleyview, causing traffic backups along the highway. Kamloops Fire Rescue has also closed Todd Road for traffic trying to drive onto the street from Dallas Drive. BC Transit also says it has suspended all service through Barnhartvale for now, along Route 17.
About 1,500 Hydro customers are also without power between Monte Creek and Chase; the worst of the wind storm continues to move east, with new outages reported in Salmon Arm, Sicamous and other parts of the Shuswap.
It’s unclear when power could be restored for customers still without service in Kamloops.
ORIGINAL:
Thousands of BC Hydro customers in the Kamloops area are in the dark as a powerful storm moves in to the region.
According to BC Hydro’s online outage map, there are 3,374 customers without power on the North Shore, 3,183 in Valleyview, Dallas and Barnhartvale, 1,857 in the Heffley Creek area, and another 350 without power just north of Barriere. Forty-eight customers are also in the dark near the McLure Ferry, and 31 customers in Gleneagles.
Because of the storm, fire crews have also closed off Todd Road to traffic going up, although traffic can come down.
Multiple reports have come in this hour in Kamloops of downed power lines and trees.
Thousands more province-wide are in the dark, according to BC Hydro’s outage map, as wind warnings are in place for a number of regions.
Environment Canada says wind warnings extend to the North Thompson, the Fraser Canyon, the southern Cariboo and other regions. The South Thompson, Nicola and other areas have lesser special weather statements in effect.
Wind gusts of up to 94 kilometres per hour have been reported in the central Cariboo, and winds of at least 70 kilometres are widely expected across B.C.
We’ll have more information as it comes available.
The winds are here, hold on tight.@CFJC_Today @TourismKamloops #Kamloops pic.twitter.com/VcuEJv8s0G
— ScottProject (@ScottProject1) October 25, 2019
Quite the windstorm blowing through downtown #Kamloops right now. @environmentca says to expect strong wind gusts up to 70 or 80 km/hr today. #bcstorm pic.twitter.com/uUpZhADihU
— Victor Mario Kaisar (@supermario_47) October 25, 2019
A new outage reported minutes ago just north of #Kamloops affecting 1,857 BC Hydro customers. Stormy weather is visibly moving north-to-south from the North Thompson. #bcstorm pic.twitter.com/2AB1lktWPL
— RadioNLNews (@RadioNLNews) October 25, 2019
