The very visible green Godzilla atop Nissan of Nanaimo on the Old Island Hwy. was toppled by strong winds earlier this month, and now tops BC Hydro's list of most memorable outages for the year. (BC Hydro)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

lounging lizard

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NANAIMO — Line workers and repair crews with the provincial power utility deal with a wide array of tricky calls throughout the year.

However, a green Godzilla mascot in Nanaimo easily topped the list of memorable page outs in 2025.

Strong wind storms mid-month helped topple the sizeable inflatable lizard on Dec. 18, sitting atop Nissan of Nanaimo along the Old Island Hwy.

“In December, three major storms swept across B.C. The last one even sent a giant inflatable Godzilla flying into BC Hydro lines at a car dealership in Nanaimo, prompting a trouble call to safely remove it,” Hydro noted in a release of their most odd and memorable service calls for the year.

No major damage resulted from the downed attraction, with Nanaimo Fire Rescue not paged out for the incident.

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It wasn’t the only odd creature, inflatable or otherwise, to tangle with power lines this year.

Kids practicing their angling skills accidentally snagged power lines in Sidney in May, causing an outage for one house.

Two fishing lures were removed by crews before restoring service.

Other call-outs weren’t human-caused at all, with ospreys sparking several issues throughout the year.

In July, a bird dropped a fish onto a power line in Ashcroft, south of Cache Creek, igniting a small grass fire, which dominoed into an outage impacting nearly 1,000 nearby homes and businesses.

Another osprey, this time in Quesnel, dropped another fish on more power lines and cut power for six BC Hydro customers, an event which also forced crews to replace the pole itself.

And in July, a crew shut off power for over 4,600 customers in Delta after colliding with a transformer.

“While outages can be unpredictable, many are preventable,” Hydro’s release noted. “BC Hydro urges the public to stay safe by watching for power lines, never flying kites, drones or carrying balloons near them, and securing items that could blow away.”

Hydro crews also say people should stay at least 10 metres away from downed power lines and immediately call 911 to report the issue.

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