KELOWNA — Wednesday night’s large power outage in the central Okanagan was a fluke.
BC Hydro says some 22,000 homes and businesses were without power for about nine hours when a utility pole caught fire.
The outage occurred shortly after 6:30 p.m. affecting customers in West Kelowna and Peachland.
The lights came back on at 3:30 Thursday morning.
BC Hydro says for some reason a power pole caught fire about 30 kilometres east of Merritt.
The transmission line runs from the Nicola substation to West Kelowna.
The last time that line failed was in 2007.
The failure has renewed calls from West Kelowna mayor Doug Findlater for a secondary line.
He says that he’s been assured by BC Hydro that a business plan has been opened.
Findlater says the line will be risk assessed and ranked against other capital projects before it gets on the capital projects list.
He says it’s a complex process.
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