By Andrea Arnold
BC Hydro customers in the Crescent Spur and Dome Creek areas have been expressing concern regarding a notice they received from BC Hydro stating that they have a planned power outage that will impact service during four days near the end of January.
The notice said that the outage was planned from January 25-28th from 8:00am-4:00pm for “emergent work.”
Dome Creek resident Russ Purvis says many people in that area most likely don’t have wood stoves to heat or cook. He says the outage will affect households with children and seniors at home and that most residents in that area rely on electricity to pump their water for themselves and livestock.
“We can’t count on above freezing weather in January,” he said.
Mike Kellett, Manager, Northern Community Relations for BC Hydro says that the work is considered a top priority as one of the supporting poles has extensive rot and a large hollowed section.
“The work is to replace power poles and line that pose an imminent risk to safety and the reliability of the local electrical system,” said Kellett. “These planned outages affect 123 customers, who we have notified.”
BC Hydro said it is watching the temperatures and the forecast for the area is mild for the time of year and Kellett says they are moving as fast as they can to remove the threat.
“We appreciate there is never a good time for an outage – much less a series of outages in the winter – and we are doing the operation now as the risk is imminent,” he said.
Kellett also said that the state of the pole was such that it was at risk of failure resulting in a sudden and longer outage at a possibly colder and more inconvenient time.
According to Kellett the planned format of these outages provide people to prepare, and have been scheduled during the day in hopes to cause less of an inconvenience overall then the alternative, non-planned option.
