By Kyle Ireland

Hydro update: Some good news to those without power in Nanaimo region

Dec 26, 2018 | 7:43 AM

NANAIMO — BC Hydro customers still in the dark in the Nanaimo-area could see their power restored some time on Boxing Day.

BC Hyrdo crews from as far away as the East Coast have worked around the clock to restore service after a powerful windstorm swept through the region on Thursday.

Nanaimo-based Hydro spokesperson Ted Olynick said crews expected to have power restored to the roughly 1,900 people without power by noon on Boxing Day.

“But we’re still going to have pocket outages, it could be from 11 customers to up to 50 customers,” Olynick said. “We will still have some of those pockets to deal with just because of the damage.”

Olynick said BC Hydro crews are in a tough position given how extensive the damage from last Thursday’s unprecedented storm was.

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“Normally we would be dealing with a branch on a line but right now were dealing with a tree on a line and the line is down. Or a pole is broken so it’s taking a lot longer to do. That’s what’s making us get a slow progress in a lot of areas.”

At the storm’s peak, near-hurricane level winds battered the mid-island coast and plunged more than 40,000 BC Hydro customers in the area into darkness. While the storm itself was damaging, the timing couldn’t have been worse right before the holidays.

Thousands spent their Christmas in the dark.

“There is never a good time to have an outage but certainly this is the worst time of the year to have one,” Olynick said. “Crews are working hard to get as much as they can done.”

Olynick adds an extensive cleanup job is ongoing in the Yellow Point Rd. area, which was the hardest hit in the region during Thursday’s storm. 

Much of the destruction was cleared over the weekend, but there are still trees and power lines downed throughout Nanaimo, Olynick said. 

Residents are reminded to treat every power line as if it’s active and to stay clear.

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