We’ve had a lot of storms lately. It’s a La Niña year, and that means more rain and stormy weather. That has been great for the drought we had this summer. But it’s been rough on hydro.
The storm that hit on Monday, November 8, knocked out power for thousands of people on VanIsle.
The biggest outages were in Colwood and Langford on the South Island. But Courtenay, Campbell River, Sayward, and Quadra Island also got hit badly.
Part of the problem with storms is that they blow trees over the power lines. Unfortunately, there aren’t many power lines that connect all of VanIsle. So one fallen tree can cause big problems.
BC Hydro has been upgrading the power lines on the Island since the summer. As a result, planned power outages have been a pain. But BC Hydro says the work they’ve been doing will make the system stronger.
We aren’t the only ones suffering from power outages. More than 14,000 people had no power in North Vancouver.
BC Hydro also found that more than half the people in BC don’t have an emergency kit to deal with power outages.
According to their Ready, Set, Storm report, we are “overconfident and underprepared.” Sounds like my high school teachers.
And the people who are the least prepared are in Vancouver, which is wild because they had a tornado yesterday.
Because of climate change, storms are getting more intense and happening more often than they used to. So BC Hydro is telling everyone to get their emergency plan ready.
You can download their checklist to get started. Maybe start that now rather than the next time there’s a storm in the forecast.
