Downed trees and power lines were a common sight through much of the area, including here on Townsite Rd. Tuesday afternoon and evening, due to a strong windstorm. This tree branch fell on a parked vehicle, no-one was injured. (Image Credit: Tanya Blake)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

surveying the damage

Power back on following intense windstorm through Nanaimo & Oceanside

Mar 25, 2026 | 8:50 AM

NANAIMO — Power is restored to a vast majority of BC Hydro customers after an impactful wind storm knocked tens of thousands off the grid.

Emergency crews and Hydro crews responded through the night to reports of downed trees and lines across the region on Tuesday, March 24, into Wednesday morning, cleaning up from strong wind gusts.

BC Hydro data showed the storm knocked roughly 50,000 customers were in the dark across Nanaimo, Parksville, Qualicum, Ladysmith, and Gabriola Island, with approximately 5,000 still off as of 9 a.m. Wednesday morning.

“It’s going to be challenging in some areas,” Ted Olynyk, BC Hydro spokesperson, told NanaimoNewsNOW. “We don’t know the complete damage that crews will face yet. We’ve seen broken poles on some of the Gulf Islands…we’ll have to get equipment over there to deal with it and, of course, the time it takes to replace the broken pole.”

Calls for service in the Nanaimo region began flooding in shortly after 4 p.m. on Tuesday.

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Nanaimo Fire Rescue trucks were dispatched consistently from one call to another, responding to lines down, alarms being activated, and general assistance, along with a typical stream of medical aid and other pages.

In a four-hour period, between 4:15 p.m. and 8:15 p.m., 23 separate calls for help were made directly related to damage on BC Hydro wires.

Larger outages in the Country Club Centre and Departure Bay areas began being restored around 11 p.m.

Others reported restoration of service between midnight and 3 a.m.

Issues in Parksville were considerably fewer, as many residents were hit earlier by the winds.

Acting assistant fire chief Cam Cruickshank said they mainly dealt with domino effects from the storm.

“What we had mostly was just a lot of traffic lights that weren’t working. Usually when the traffic lights lose power, they have the red flashing lights, but that was working at a number of intersections. We did have an MVI (motor vehicle incident). We actually were pretty fortunate in Parksville, we didn’t have too many lines down or trees down.”

As of early Wednesday morning, only a handful of small blackouts remained in Nanaimo, primarily in the East Wellington neighbourhood.

A large section of Gabriola Island remained in the dark, as did sections of Yellow Point.

Bearing the first real blow of the storm Tuesday afternoon, power was largely restored in Oceanside.

Olynyk said during events like this, their first priority is to ensure main transmission lines are cleared, along with main city arteries for first responders.

“And then we try to bring on the most customers we can at one time. That’s why you’ll see outages dropping quite significantly in the first part of the storm, because it’s a feeder, and that’s maybe 1,500 to 2,000 customers on that, and that number drops quite dramatically. It still takes the same amount of time to clear a line of a tree that affects 2,000 customers as it would 200 customers.”

He added Tuesday’s storm should be a solid wake-up call for anyone who does not have an emergency kit prepared.

Flashlights, batteries, water, and snacks are all essentials to have on hand when the power goes out.

“Make sure that you have your emergency kit and you’re able to deal with the outage. You don’t want to be looking for things at night when it’s dark, you don’t want to prepare for an outage when it happens. You want to make sure you’re prepared before the event.”

No wind warning was issued for the region by Environment Canada, despite alerts in place elsewhere.

Western and northern Vancouver Island were covered by yellow alerts Tuesday, advising of the potential for strong winds, but areas of the east coast between the Comox Valley and Victoria saw nothing issued.

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