The most damaging storms in BC’s history happened in the past five years, says BC Hydro.
However, spokesperson Susie Rieder says “despite increasing storms, BC Hydro has been able to maintain and even exceed its goal to have 95 per cent of customers restored within 24 hours.”
She says changing climate conditions, such as last year’s drought which dried out the forests, are causing more outages from falling trees and branches.
“We do have more trees per kilometer of power line in BC than most utilities,” she says. “The number one cause of outages is trees and adverse weather.”
The worst storm on record was in 2018 just before Christmas, when over 750,000 customers on the South Coast lost power.
BC Hydro says people should prepare for storm-related power outages by having a well-stocked emergency kit with bottled water, batteries and non-perishable food items to last at least 72 hours.
The utility published a report this week about the five worst recent storms, and how the company prepares for outages to make sure recovery times are as quick as possible.
