By Abigail Popple, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, RMG
Residents of Blue River and the District of Clearwater were left without power for about 20 hours last week after BC Hydro disconnected their transmission line to repair a cracked utility pole.
The damaged pole was discovered around 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, according to Susan Edgell, a spokesperson in Hydro’s Community Relations department. Edgell informed local authorities – such as Thompson-Nicola Regional District Director Lee Onslow – of the planned outage at 3:28 p.m, about three and a half hours before the scheduled 7:00 p.m. outage.
Repairing the pole was urgent, Edgell told The Goat in an email.
“If we left the power on and left the faulty equipment as it was [on Wednesday], we could have seen the broken infrastructure on the pole collapse, taking down the high voltage live powerline with it,” she wrote. “If this had happened, we could have started a major forest fire.”
Edgell said she was told there was not enough time to send a planned outage notification to customers, so she prioritized alerting regional district directors and other local authorities.
In her initial email, Edgell sent an estimated outage time of six hours. Before arriving at the repair site, crews thought the site would be easily accessible, according to Edgell, but once they got there, they realized a road would have to be constructed to reach the pole. This work would be dangerous to do in the dark, meaning crews had to wait until the following morning to construct a road with bulldozers and then repair the pole.
Power was restored around 3:21 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, a full day after residents were notified of the outage. Hydro sent several predictions of how long the outage would last: after the initial 6-hour estimate, the company said it would be restored at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday at the earliest – about 14 hours after the outage began – then pushed this estimate back to 3:30 p.m. Some residents felt frustrated at the lack of direct communication and initial incorrect estimate of the outage length.
“They never did directly contact anybody – I’d seen it blasted across Facebook, that’s how come I knew the power was going out,” said Micky Humphrey, who rents cabins on her property just outside of Blue River. “It was going to be out for six hours… They get [to the job site], they realize they can’t access it, but they already shut the damn power off.”
Humphrey appreciates that the crew needed daylight to do their jobs safely, but wishes Hydro hadn’t sent premature estimates of when power would be restored, she said. This outage was one of many this summer, at a time where her business has already been hit by dwindling tourism in the area, Humphrey said.
In an email to The Goat, Edgell said Blue River had three outages earlier this summer, all lasting under five hours and all due to lightning strikes.
Lee Onslow, one of the regional district directors who Hydro informed of the outage, said it was unusual for the company not to contact customers directly – in her experience, Hydro typically sends an email notification before planned outages.
“It seemed to me, especially at the beginning of the power outage and the short notice, that it probably would have been useful for individuals in these communities… to actually hear directly from BC Hydro, because a lot of the information was coming from Facebook,” Onslow told The Goat in an interview.
“I commend the BC Hydro workers for fixing this problem, but I also find it a bit frustrating when you’re told the power outage will be six hours and then you’re not notified until the morning that the power is still not on and it’s going to take all day,” she added. “I would have really appreciated BC Hydro knowing more about what the job looked like prior to saying that it was going to be a short outage.”
Hospital unaffected
In an email statement to The Goat, Interior Health’s Executive Director of Clinical Operations in Cariboo/South Cariboo Karen Cooper said the Dr. Helmcken Memorial Hospital in Clearwater was operational during the outage, largely due to the hospital’s gas-powered generator.
“The hospital also didn’t experience any water shortages and we have since made updates to the building’s water connection which will give us easier access to alternative water sources should something similar happen in the future,” Cooper added. “We were in close communication with the District of Clearwater, BC Hydro and other partners during the power outage.”
McBride was unaffected by the outage, despite being on the same part of the transmission system as Blue River and Clearwater. Valemount had an outage for about an hour. Both McBride and Valemount were “islanded,” a process where communities are moved to an Independent Power Producer’s transmission system, according to Edgell.
No backups yet for Blue River
Onslow said she asked Hydro if the company could enter an agreement with an Independent Power Producer in Bone Creek. Edgell told The Goat that the company does not currently have an agreement with the Bone Creek producer, and could not confirm whether such an agreement is being considered by the company at this time.
Onslow and other directors have also asked Hydro if the transmission system could be extended to Prince George, which would provide a backup energy source for the Robson Valley. Edgell says this won’t be a possibility for at least the next 10 years.
“Creating a loop from Prince George to Valemount has been looked at in the past, and that would be about a 275 km long extension on the transmission system,” Edgell told The Goat. “Based on the current level of reliability and capacity, BC Hydro cannot justify including a second transmission supply to the area.”
Edgell acknowledged that the window of time between her first email and the power outage was short, but emphasized that the repairs were necessary.
“Crews worked as quickly and diligently as they could to gain access to the site,” Edgell said. “We want to thank all our customers for their patience and for having to endure the inconveniences this outage has caused.”
