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Tens Of Thousands Still Without Power After British Columbia Ice Storms

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 30 Dec, 2017 01:26 PM

ABBOTSFORD, B.C. — Tens of thousands of people in the Fraser Valley are still without electricity on Saturday as icy roads and poor visibility made it hard for crews to restore power.

BC Hydro says Mission and Abbotsford were the hardest hit communities after two ice storms slammed the region on Thursday and Friday, bringing down tree branches and power lines.

More than 100,000 people were initially affected by the outages — 36,000 of whom had not had power restored by 8 a.m. on Saturday.

BC Hydro says crews — including some who were brought in from other regions — are working to restore power, but "difficult and dangerous conditions" such as icy roads, poor visibility and falling trees have made the effort more challenging.

Officials are reminding people to keep their distance and call 911 should they see a downed power line.

Meteorologists also issued weather advisories elsewhere in the province. Snowfall warnings apply to the following regions, listed alphabetically:

100 Mile

Arrow Lakes-Slocan Lake

Boundary

Fraser Canyon

Howe Sound

Kootenay Lake

Metro Vancouver – West Vancouver to Whistler

Nicola

North and South Thompson

Okanagan Valley

Shuswap

Similkameen

West Kootenay

Whistler

The following areas are under extreme cold weather warnings:

Dease Lake

Elk Valley

Peace River

South Klondike Highway

Watson Lake

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