This week’s snow storm saw over one hundred thousand people in our area lose their power and some customers are still in the dark.

Speaking on NL Newsday, BC Hydro spokesperson Jenn Walker-Larsen spoke about the challenges crews are facing. “It’s a combination of population density and the terrain so because there’s less dense population there’s more infrastructure spread out and it’s also spread out through some heavily forested and mountainous areas.”

Walker-Larsen said there’s a huge contrast between the power grid in a place like Kamloops and smaller, more remote communities. “That’s a little different in the more rural areas that’s a pretty typical infrastructure set up.”

“If you have a denser population of customers you can usually interconnect lines more so you’re able to feed them from other sources.”

She also pointed out the infrastructure is completely different in rural areas than it is in urban settings. “A lot of customers are fed from what we call radial lines so they’re coming our from substations and they’re forming a finger line so there’s the substation and then it goes out. So, there’s no other way to serve those customers other than that line.”

Customers are into day number four without power and BC Hydro has crews working around the clock to get everybody’s lights and heat back on.

Photo: BC Hydro’s Twitter