WATCH: Our first real blast of fall brought wind gusts of more than a hundred kilometres an hour and torrential rain — generating a warning about high water that still stands tonight. Asa Rehman reports.
VANCOUVER – Hydro crews are hustling to fix the damage caused by a powerful wind storm overnight.
Strong winds brought down trees in a range of areas, including on to a house in Surrey.
Branches and other debris are being blamed for electricity being cut in a wide range of areas across the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island. The areas hardest hit were Langley, Surrey, Delta, Burnaby, Campbell River, Coquitlam, Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows to name a few. On Vancouver Island, Central Saanich and Saturna Island got the worst of the storm.
Drivers were urged to be cautious this morning due to downed lines, pooling on roads and lights out due to the outages.
READ: The full list of Power Outages provided by BC Hydro
The roof of the Fraser Valley Alliance Church in Delta was covered in tree branches this morning.
About 70 to 80 workers at the Howe Sound Pulp and Paper mill cannot get in or out this morning because the Port Mellon Highway has been washed out. Work is continuing as normal but if workers need to leave they can do so via water taxi.
There is no estimated time of opening for the highway and no detour available. It is closed in both directions 6 km north of Junction with Highway 101. A viewer sent us this photo below of a car that was almost washed away with the road.
At the height of the storm wind gusts were as high as 90 kilometres an hour and nearly 67,000 people were without power.
Hydro is hoping to have service restored to most regions by noon on Wednesday.
While the highest amounts of rain missed Metro Vancouver with roughly 15 mm recorded, Global BC meteorologist Mark Madryga says Squamish was hit hard with 50 mm and Whistler about 35 mm with the storm. Peak wind gusts included:
Vancouver Airport 74 km/h
Point Atkinson 82
Howe Sound 102
Abbotsford 54
Powell River 83
Comox 82
White Rock 56
Prince George 78
The River Forecast Centre has issued a high streamflow advisory for waterways like the Seymour River because of all the rain expected to fall from the storm system.
People are being warned that water levels will be high and that the water will be moving fast.
Flooding is a possibility.
Rescue workers say people can make their jobs a lot easier by staying away from the water.
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