Fraser Valley cleaning up after windstorm that knocked out power, closed schools

Areas of the Fraser Valley are cleaning up from a windstorm on Wednesday night.

Thousands of people were left without power in Chilliwack, Hope, Abbotsford and Mission after powerful winds swept through the region, bringing down power lines and trees.

Gusts reached up to 100 km/h in some parts on Wednesday night.

“In Hope and Chilliwack, we’re still seeing the outage numbers climb, of course. In the valley there’s a lot more trees, so they tend to get more outages in the low-lying areas there where the trees come down on our infrastructure,” Susie Rieder, a spokesperson for BC Hydro, said.

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“In recent years, we have had more drought and that has caused vegetation to be more brittle and susceptible to coming down into our infrastructure.”

Highway 1 was closed for a few hours overnight near Hope due to downed power lines, but reopened on Thursday morning.

2:32 Windstorm wreaks havoc across South Coast

Every school in the Hope School District was closed on Thursday due to the storm.

East Chilliwack Elementary, Little Mountain Elementary, Sardis Elementary, Sardis Secondary, and Cheam Elementary were also closed on Thursday due to the storm.

All other schools were open and buses were running.