Blue River is under a boil water advisory because of a BC Hydro power outage today.
The Thompson-Nicola Regional District says the boil water notice is because of potential contamination from loss of water pressure and water supply.
The TNRD says the Blue River Community Water System is being chlorinated while crews flush the system.
It’s unclear how long the boil water notice could be in place.
According to BC Hydro’s outage map, power should be restored by 3 p.m. this afternoon. That outage is affecting 276 customers. Further south, another 66 Hydro customers are without power in Avola and Wire Cache. That outage is also expected to end at 3 p.m. today.
Power is out, in fact, all the way north to Valemount along the Highway 5 corridor. Valemount is also expected to have power return at 3 p.m. today.
All of those outages happened just before 4 p.m. yesterday.
TNRD area director Stephen Quinn spoke to NL News while charging his cell phone in vehicle and trying to stay warm. He says temperatures dipped to minus-9 in Blue River last night, and points out the power outage has been going on for more than 20 straight hours.
“I think the last time we had an outage of this length was in the fires of 2003. There have been occasional outages up to 4 and 5 hours, but this is the longest since the fires, I think, of 2003. That’s when the whole transmission line burned.”
The cause of the outage is listed as a “transmission circuit failure,” which Quinn says started at the Brocklehurst power substation in Kamloops. The outage also affected people from Heffley Creek north to Vavenby, put power was restored much earlier for those communities and places in between.
The TNRD is asking anyone with questions about the boil water notice to call 1-877-377-8673.
A Boil Water Notice for the Blue River Community Water System, effective immediately.
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— TNRD (@TNRD) March 30, 2021