Significant headway in restoring power to Southern Interior: BC Hydro

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – After a powerful New Years Eve storm in B.C.’s Southern Interior left more than 100,000 hydro customers in the dark, BC Hydro is reporting that over 99 per cent have their power back.

Still, Dag Sharman with BC Hydro says crews won’t be stopping this weekend until everyone is back up and running.

“We’d like again to thank our customers for your patience and understanding through this,” Sharman says.

“Please know we will continue to work around the clock until everybody has their power back.”

Sharman adds around 100 customers in small pockets in the Shuswap and other more remote areas are still without power after the massive storm on New Year’s Eve.

“On some particular hard-hit areas in the Shuswap, on the North Shore, Anglemont, Swartz Creek, may not have their power until Monday, at least some of those customers.”

At its height on New Year’s Day, around 160,000 BC Hydro customers were left without power after a strong winter storm hit the Southern and Central Interior with heavy snow and strong winds.

In the community of Bella Coola, it says several broken poles caused an outage for about 300 customers and it is working to bring in additional crews to the area though heavy snow and road closures due to high avalanche risk are making access difficult.

About 6,650 customers are without power throughout the province, according to BC Hydro, for a number of reasons, including ongoing snow storms throughout the province.

Parts of the province remained under a snow warning Saturday morning following winter storm, snowfall, wind and rain warnings for large chunks of B.C. Friday.

– With files from The Canadian Press

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