B.C. floods: Some Tulameen River Road residents still without power

It’s a winter wonderland right now near the small south Okanagan town of Tulameen.

And some residents of the area are only wondering one thing.

“When will we get power back?” said Ed Petschl.

More than a dozen homes along Tulameen River Road have been without electricity for a long time. Petschl’s hobby farm is one of them.

“Right at 30 days now,” Petschl said Monday of the length of time some residents have been without power.

In early November, massive flooding washed out a large section of the road upstream from the town of Tulameen.

“We lost a number of homes up this road,” Bob Coyne of the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen told Global News at the time.

The homes that did survive were cut off completely, losing both hydro and phone lines.

1:21 Small community of Tulameen, B.C. hit hard by flooding

However, 11 days ago, a temporary road was built on private land to reconnect residents.

“We expected to get power back shortly thereafter. We were promised it various times; they would say two days, five days,” Petschl said.

“But every couple of days they come up with a new reason and a new story, why we are not getting our power back,” Petschl said with frustration.

It’s a multi-agency effort to rebuild and restore the hydro and phone lines and an evacuation order for the area was only lifted five days ago.

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“The damage to the area was significant,” said Fortis corporate communications manager Sean Beardow.

Beardow added that it’s not just as easy as restoring power with the flick of a switch.

“This is not so much as a simple repair job, where we are going in and fixing infrastructure. This was a full infrastructure rebuild.”

But Petschl and other area residents worry that it’s become bogged down in bureaucracy.

“We’ve had three medical emergencies here since the event, the flooding, and we have no way to call an ambulance,” Petschl said, because the Tulameen area has no cell service.

RDOS area representative Bob Coyne says he and several groups have been hard at work trying to get the power restored to the area.

“The only hold-up is getting written permission from the landowners to cross that land,” Coyne told Global News, referring to a legal right of way for new power lines from FortisBC to be placed on private land.

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However, the owners of the private land say they haven’t been contacted by FortisBC.

“We’ve received nothing from Fortis,” Jennifer Liss said.

When asked if anyone from FortisBC had contacted them about a right of way over their land for a new power line, Liss’s answer was simple.

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“No,” Liss said, shaking her head.

Jennifer and Lawrence Liss say they are not the hold-up, adding they want the power lines put up right away as they are without power as well.

Still, late Monday afternoon crews from Fortis arrived on scene in front of their property to drop new poles for installation.

“We are expecting to have all the construction restored by the end of the week,” Beardow said.

Petschl and the rest of the Tulameen River Road residents affected are hopeful that will happen.

“We’re all sitting out here in the cold and it’s getting colder every day,” Petschl said.