Idabel Lake residents demand solution to electricity problem

After losing electricity for about 16 hours in two outages over two days, residents of the 50 home Idabel lake sub-division south-east of Kelowna are demanding action.

The nearby forest was harvested over the winter, with the loggers leaving a small buffer strip of trees right next to power lines.

The outages were caused when more than a dozen trees fell onto the lines during minor wind storms this week.

In a meeting with forestry officials prior to the logging, residents predicted the problems.

“I said to the forestry officials, can’t you leave a bigger strip? And he said it’s just a bigger problem,” says a frustrated Dave Murray.

He and many of his neighbours want the buffer strip trees removed.

“Because they’re just going to come down invariably anyway,” says Nancy Lock.