Island Hydro crews aid mainland cleanup

Heavy storm damage over the weekend in Greater Vancouver has B.C. Hydro sending Vancouver Island personnel to help.

“It’s just a disaster, it’s unprecedented,” Hydro spokesman Ted Olynyk said of the storm’s aftermath. “The pictures I’ve seen, the stories I’ve heard, the damage to the system.

“We manage the electricity but we don’t control the weather. It was raining branches.”

Olynyk said it is much more common for crews to be sent from the Lower Mainland to the Island after major weather events.

“Usually we’re the ones because weather comes off the Pacific and we get hit hard,” he said. “It’s our turn to send people over to Vancouver.”

Olynyk said more than 60 people have been sent to help, including both Hydro and contracted work crews, as well as Hydro management and support staff.

Weekend power outages affected an estimated 500,000 people in southwestern B.C., the majority of those in Greater Vancouver where winds reached at least 80 kilometres an hour.

Environment Canada meteorologist Matt MacDonald said the force of the storm was “totally abnormal” for the time of year.

“It’s the type of storm that we usually see in October, November.”

He said the fact that trees still have their leaves right now makes them more susceptible to damage because the leaves can act like a sail and catch the wind.

On Vancouver Island, outages affected a peak of about 34,000 people, with approximately 11,000 of those in the Victoria area.

Recent dry conditions contributed to the Greater Vancouver situation as the weather shifted gears, Olynyk said.

“We know from past experience when we go from one extreme event to the other that we’re going to see more damage when we hit the storm season -- it happened in 2006 -- because stuff is dry, it’s brittle, it’s dead.”

Complicating the situation was interruption of service on B.C. Hydro’s website, which provides information on outages.

“We suspect it was overuse,” Olynyk said. “It was up and down on the weekend, which we know is very frustrating for our customers.”

The severity of the weekend weather can serve as a warning, he said.

“It reminds us all to be prepared. No one predicted the storm to be that strong.”

MacDonald said the approaching weather system was being closely watched during the week and some wind was expected, but it was only Saturday morning when it was realized how strong the storm could be. He said a wind warning was issued at 8 a.m. and the strongest winds followed at 1 p.m.

The wind reached a high of 117 kilometres an hour on Saturna Island.