BC

Storm aftermath-July 21,2012

Photo: Contributed

Trees came down at the Lakeside Resort in Oliver around 4:00 pm on Friday.

Photo: Contributed

Trees came down at the Lakeside Resort in Oliver around 4:00 pm on Friday.

Photo: Contributed

Trees came down at the Lakeside Resort in Oliver around 4:00 pm on Friday.

Photo: Contributed - Scott Lanigan

A homeowner in Oliver was one of many to find damage after Friday's storm.

Photo: Contributed - Brenda Patterson

Trees came to a rest on Falcon Ridge Cr. in Joe Rich where power wasn`t restored until Saturday morning.

Photo: Contributed - Chris Loeppky

Numerous lightning strikes like this one knocked out power to thousands of BC Hydro and Fortis BC customers throughout the province.

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Both FortisBC and BC Hydro are working to restore power to customers after a severe storm swept through portions of BC on Friday.

The Okanagan and the Kootenays were the hardest hit.

Almost 14,000 BC Hydro customers in the region were still without power Saturday morning as crews worked to repair the damage from lightning strikes and high winds which knocked trees onto power lines in numerous areas Friday afternoon causing multiple outages.

In the Kootenays, Kimberley, Cranbrook, Fernie and Invermere were all dealing with power outages and in Vernon, power is not expected to be restored until at least 4:00 p.m., to over 100 customers in the Mabel Lake Road area.

On top of that, another 622 customers north of Eight Mile Road in Vernon are without power, after service was lost just after 11:30 Saturday morning. The cause of that outage is still under investigation.

Another 1,300 hundred customers were also waiting for power to be restored in the Thompson Shuswap.

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FortisBC reports that their customers in Kootenays were also hit hard and that crews are working to restore power in affected areas.

"We've just restored the vast majority of Christina Lake, which is approximately 1,600 customers," says FortisBC Director of Communications Joyce Wagenaar.

However, another 4,000 customers were still without power by early Saturday afternoon.

"We're still working on service restoration in the North Fork area of Grand Forks, as well as Kalso, West Creston and Crawford Bay."

Wagenaar says service was restored to most of the Okanagan on Friday, although around 450 customers in Joe Rich had to wait until early Saturday morning.

"Primarily, the cause of loss of service was trees falling and damaging the lines and a few poles as well. There was also some spotted service disruptions in the East Kelowna area and the Rutland Bench and we still have crews doing some very small service restorations in those areas."

Wagenaar adds that people should always stay away from downed power lines and to report all downed lines or any outage to them by calling 1-866-436-7847. You can also find more information at FortisBC.com