Freezing rain falling in the Fraser Valley and sweeping across the South Coast is creating havoc for residents on Friday.
By 4:30 p.m., more than 50,000 customers were without power in the region due to the weather, and crews were working to restore power as quickly as possible. Those numbers are still climbing however.
BC Hydro spokesperson Tanya Fish said with the freezing rain continuing to fall, the prospect of restoring power to all customers by day’s end looked unlikely.
“Crews are continuing to work in the Fraser Valley to make repairs caused by the ice storm that has caused damage to our equipment, all the crews we have available right now are out there working on the repairs and restoring customers as quickly as possible,” Fish said.
“Unfortunately, as we restore some customers, additional outages are occurring as the freezing rain continues to hit the Fraser Valley.”
The weight of the ice caused power lines to come down in multiple areas. Abbotsford police also closed Marshall Road between Ware Street and McCallum Road due to the extremely low power lines.
Conditions were not expected to improve Friday evening and police warned residents to stay home unless they had to leave the house.
The City of Abbotsford said it has closed the Abbotsford and Matsqui Recreation Centres, and all parks and trails will be closed until Jan. 2.
Mission Emergency Social Services has opened a reception centre until at least 7 p.m. at 7650 Grand Street for warming and information.
The freezing rain warning was extended to Metro Vancouver on Friday, especially in Surrey and Langley, where conditions were forecast to deteriorate on Friday evening.
Up to 20 millimetres of freezing rain was expected to fall by late Friday evening.
This raised concerns about surfaces becoming extremely slippery and hazardous.
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