A significant wind storm has left more than 100,000 BC Hydro customers in the dark as of early Wednesday morning.
The Crown corporation says that high winds have caused extensive damage across multiple regions, and crews will continue to work to restore power as quickly as they can.
Powerful winds began to batter parts of the province late Tuesday afternoon, thanks to a powerful low-pressure centre parked off the B.C. coast.
It is forecast to generate intense easterly winds into Wednesday morning.
“Over the next 24 hours, we are going to see a really rapidly intensifying storm offshore — and that’s the big operative point here, is that the storm is going to come towards the coast, and then get 350-400 kilometres away,” explained Environment Canada warning preparedness meteorologist Armell Castellan.
“So it is going to get close enough to give us some really strong winds southeasterly for areas in the Salish Sea, and then north for Howe Sound, Fraser Canyon.”
Environment Canada has issued wind warnings for Vancouver Island, Howe Sound, the Sunshine Coast, the Southern Gulf Islands and the North and Central coasts.
Special weather statements are also in place for Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley along with much of the central interior.
Winds could gust up to 110 km/h on Vancouver Island’s west coast, while Greater Victoria and eastern Vancouver Island could see gusts in the 90 to 100 km/h range. The North Island and mainland inlets on the central coast could see winds gust up to 120 km/h.
Gusts in Metro Vancouver could reach about 78 km/h.
This type of system is known as an explosive cyclogenesis, a bomb cyclone or a bombogenesis, which occurs when a rapid drop in atmospheric pressure is recorded at the centre of a storm system.
“There is going to be flying debris all over the place, 100, 110, even 120 km/h gusts are possible on the north tip of Vancouver Island,” Castellan said.
“That will be enough to dislodge loose items and send them flying. In fact, BC Hydro had one event just a couple of weeks ago where flying patio equipment caused 14,000 people to lose power because it damaged one of their pieces of equipment.”
The winds are forecast to peak Tuesday night.
Closures and cancellations
Early Tuesday evening, RCMP on Vancouver Island closed Highway 4 east of Port Alberni due to “unsafe conditions.”
Police reported that first responders had already been deployed to multiple crashes on the route, related to high winds and downed trees.
BC Ferries took proactive steps ahead of the storm, cancelling the final sailings of the day on its major routes between the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.
Spokesperson Jeff Groot said the first sailings of the day on those same routes for Wednesday may also be cancelled, and that a variety of other sailings on major and minor routes throughout Tuesday had been cancelled or placed “at risk.”
“We are really trying to balance how do we keep moving for our customers when we can, but also put safety first and if it gets too bad we will obviously cancel those sailings,” he said.
“We’ve notified our customers that all of those are at risk, and we are likely going to be making some decisions as the day goes on. The decisions so far have really affected the major routes.”
Groot said anyone planning on travelling via the ferries should check BC Ferries’ Current Conditions website before heading to the terminal.
BC Hydro spokesperson Kevin Aquino-Bravo said the Crown corporation has been gearing up in anticipation of the storm.
“We did alleviate some crews this morning so we would have a full complement of crews overnight, and that would ensure we have a strong response in the event the bomb cyclone does materialize,” he said.
“One thing we did do is we put some crews onto the ferries this morning to get to the hard-to-reach areas so we would have restoration services in places like the North Island.”
B.C.’s emergency management ministry has issued an advisory of its own, urging people to be prepared for the conditions, including being ready for power outages and having an emergency kit handy.
Meanwhile, B.C.’s South Coast saw its first taste of snow for the season on Monday night.
Flakes were recorded falling and sticking on Burnaby Mountain and in parts of Surrey, Coquitlam and Aldergrove.
While the snow had melted by Tuesday morning, municipal snowplows were out in several areas overnight.