Hydro truck crushed by tree, 10K lose power in Nanaimo thanks to wicked winds
VANCOUVER — A BC Hydro technician is unhurt but his truck was crushed by a falling tree while he tried to restore power in a Vancouver neighbourhood as a windstorm tore across southern British Columbia late Tuesday.
Hydro spokeswoman Mora Scott said the worker was in the vehicle when the tree came down but the truck’s boom absorbed most of the impact and the worker was able to escape the shattered cab.
The incident happened at the height of the storm, which BC Hydro says knocked out power to 210,000 customers on the Lower Mainland, Sunshine Coast, parts of Vancouver Island and the southern Interior.
According to BC Hydro’s website, nearly 10,000 customers in Nanaimo lost power at some point between 5:30 p.m. Tuesday and 3 a.m. Wednesday. The peak for outages in Nanaimo was around 3:15 a.m., when more than 5,200 customers were off the grid due to a tree down across the lines.