Close to 400,000 BC Hydro customers, primarily on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland, lost power during the recent windstorms. Gusts of up to 159 km/h were reported on November 19, the first night of the storm. By 4 PM on Friday, November 22, all but about 5,000 customers on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands were back online. Parts of Cortes and Quadra Islands were among the last areas to be restored.
BC Hydro identifies extreme storms like this with climate change and, in their 2023 Climate Change Accountability Report, states:
“The climate in British Columbia is changing. Weather events are becoming more extreme, more frequent, and are having real impacts on our assets, customers, operations, capital planning and challenging our ability to provide reliable power. In 2023, the province of B.C. experienced the most destructive wildfire season on record, one of the worst storms, and sustained severe drought.”
The recent storm was worse than 2023, however it is not the most damaging in BC Hydo’s history. More than 750,000 customers lost their power during the storm that swept the southern coast on December 20, 2018. “More than 1,900 spans of wire, 390 power poles, 700 cross-arms and 230 transformers needed to be repaired or replaced.”
There have been seven major windstorms in the past decade.
One of the unanticipated impacts of the recent storm was that CityWest customers on Cortes, Denman and Hornby Islands lost their internet connection for two days. Some of the equipment at the cable’s landing site on Gabriola Island is powered by hydro. A back-up generator carried the load for three days, before going down about 10:07 PM on Thursday, November 21. Their internet connection returned when BC Hydro restored Gabriola Island’s electricity late Saturday afternoon.
According to a CityWest customer relations person, people in the affected areas are currently only serviced from the south. After the Connected Coast project is completed, they will be able to receive high speed internet from the north or south. This means that in a situation like that which just occurred, the temporary loss of a generator would not lead to a loss of service.
Some Cortes Island residents started receiving their internet through CityWest in November 2023, but there are still people waiting to be connected.
Links of Interest:
- Hydro says BC is experiencing worse storms and the cause is climate change – Cortes Currents (Nov 20, 2024)
- 2023 Climate Change Accountability Report – BC Hydro (May 2024)
- Recent history: Most of BC Hydro’s worst storms happened in the past five years – BC Hydro (Nov 2023)
- Climate change: How BC Hydro is adapting – BC Hydro (Oct 2020)
- Articles about, or mentioning BC Hydro, on Cortes Currents
- Articles about, or mentioning, CityWest on Cortes Currents
Photos by De Clarke; Screenshot by Roy L Hales
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