Freezing rain expected north of Squamish; BC Hydro says it’s ready
Posted January 4, 2018 12:01 pm.
Last Updated January 4, 2018 4:12 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SQUAMISH (NEWS 1130) – Cold temperatures at the surface but a warm rain storm moving in has prompted a freezing rain warning for the Sea-to-Sky area between Squamish and Whistler.
It’s coming just a week after two crippling ice storms in the Fraser Valley led to days of power outages.
After the ice built up and branches fell on wires or transmission lines came down, more than 100,000 BC Hydro customers had lost power.
With that in mind, Mora Scott with the utility says crews will be following this weather closely.
“In last week’s ice storms, we actually saw a lot of build up of ice on our equipment that did cause some damage. And it also slowed down the repair time because in some cases, we’d have to melt the ice off of our equipment before we could begin the work,” she explains.
Scott tells us their storm response is recognized as best in class.
“We generally have more than 95 per cent of our customers restored within the first 24 hours during a major storm event. Ice storms do pose unique challenges and the particular event that we saw last week was actually an extreme. That type of ice build up isn’t typically what we would see during winter storms here.
Ice storms present unique challenges for crews.
“We do see ice forming on branches and trees; that can cause them to break and fall onto our power lines and also knock down power poles. It also can result in a large number of smaller outages that require our crew to attend each one individually. So, it can take some more time to get repairs done,” says Scott.
The freezing rain is expected to fall through the night, before temperatures rise late Friday morning.
A freezing rain warning has also been issued for the Fraser Canyon, and there’s a chance it could develop Thursday on the Coquihalla and Hope-Princeton highways as well.
