Despite experiencing the most damaging winter storm in BC Hydro history last winter, many Northern residents are unprepared for storm-related power outages this year.
BC Hydro Spokesperson, Bob Gammer spoke with Vista Radio on the impacts of last year’s storm.
“We had the largest set of outages we’ve ever had in the company’s history. Over three-quarters of a million customers were out of power, some for many days and in fact, a lot of them were in the dark for at least three days.”
The north is not exempt from massive power outages after going through an eventful fall.
In September, the region saw 120-thousand customers without power due to a lighting strike, where the outage lasted a few hours.
Gammer adds the area went through a similar incident last month.
“We had just a month ago, the first of two windstorms in the same week where over 10,000 customers were affected each time and it swept off the North Coast, came across along the Highway 16 corridor into Prince George and then south into the Cariboo
Gammer states we can chalk this up as a learning experience.
“Sometimes we like to say lighting doesn’t strike twice but there was a really good lesson for us that we need to be prepared and something like this can happen again right on the heels of the last storm.”
He encourages residents to have an emergency kit of some kind that should include a flashlight with extra batteries, first aid kit along with medications and non-perishable food and water.
Since last year’s winter storm outage, 60% of BC Hydro customers surveyed are not prepared for a storm-related power outage.