Balloons, bears and blustery winds: A look at the top power outages of 2019

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – As 2019 winds down, BC Hydro is out with some of the wackiest reasons customers lost power this year.

More than 50,000 calls were made to BC Hydro across the province this year alone, with animals seeming to cause a bit of mayhem.

For example, customers in Williams Lake were left without power when a bear used a power pole as a scratching post. A similar incident happened near Hope when an itchy bear scratched its side against a home, knocking the power meter off the building.

A bald eagle was also a major trouble maker in Clinton when it dropped it’s lunch, a Canadian goose, directly on the power line and disrupting service. Beavers also have caused some headaches in Dawson Creek when they were gathering timber, causing trees to collapse on power lines.

But it’s not just animals causing the power issues, humans have caused a number of power outages in 2019.

A nosy neighbour was attempting to secretly record activities at a neighbour’s home and climbed a power pole to install a secret camera. That move backfired when BC Hydro crews were alerted and crews removed the camera.

But the most disruptive award has to go to hunters near Stewart who used BC Hydro transmission towers for target practice. That caused 60-grand in damage and saw the power cut for more than 170 customers.

And when it comes to Mother Nature, more than 20,000 customers in North Vancouver and West Vancouver were left in the dark in November due to a strong wind storm.

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