UPDATE: Hydro spokesperson Simi Heer says power was restored Saturday afternoon. She says bad weather made it difficult for the crew to get to the remote mountainside area where the transmission tower needs to be installed.
The small B.C. town of Stewart has been without power since Tuesday afternoon – and it could be in the dark for a lot longer.
A 55-foot-transmission tower toppled over a remote, mountainside area, causing thousands in Stewart and the surrounding Naas Valley communities to rely on generators for several days.
“We’ve been told…they need a few days to fix it up,” says Galina Durant, the mayor and school trustee of Stewart, the town that borders the Alaskan panhandle.
She says that while the school is closed, the Stewart Health Centre is open, and emergency crews are going door to door to check on people.
“We’re trying to make sure everybody’s warm and has food. It’s fortunate it hasn’t been too cold yet.”
Durant says the town has asked Hydro, which just finished completion of a new dam on Long Lake, for a backfeed transfer switch in the past, but have been denied.
The First Nations community of Laxgalts’ap, two hundred kilometres south of Stewart, is also without power, as are many other isolated communities in the Naas Valley.
Hydro first said the estimated time of installing a new tower was 6 p.m. on Friday, but Heer says that weather problems have delayed that.
“It’s not accessible by car, but we’ve had some decent flying today,” she said. Hydro doesn’t know why the original tower fell, but will be sending engineers to investigate after power is restored.
Stewart resident Shannon Mcfee, whose home has an emergency generator, says she’s heard it might not be until Sunday for the town to regain power. She worries what could happen if the weather takes a turn for the worse.
“If the weather turns, and our road closes, we’ll be trapped with no fuel,” she says. “Right now, if you don’t have a generator, you’re hoping your neighbour does.”
She said Hydro could communicate better to her community.
“They’re updating the website, but people without power can’t check the internet. We have no cell-phone service, we don’t have high-speed service.”
“The town has banded together because we have no choice”
More than 1500 customers are affected by the outage.
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