Forestry takes out power

Photo: FortisBC

UPDATE 11:55 a.m.

FortisBC says two separate incidents were behind large power outages in the South Okanagan and Boundary on Wednesday night.

Power was knocked out to 4,000 people from Christina Lake to Carmi, including Rock Creek, Midway and Grand Forks when a forestry worker toppled a tree onto a major transmission line at 2:20 p.m. in the backcountry south of Rossland.

“We are very relieved that no one was injured,” FortisBC spokesperson Nicole Bogdanovic said, adding they are working with WorkSafeBC and the involved company to investigate the accident.

Power was restored to customers in the Boundary by 8:45 p.m.

Another outage to 3,300 customers in Kaleden and Okanagan Falls occurred around 10 p.m. as a result of a damaged transmission structure near the Skaha Meadows golf course.

Crews were able to restore power to customers by about 12:30 a.m. and are working today to complete repairs.

ORIGINAL 6:15 a.m.

Power was out for several hours Wednesday night for some residents of the South Okanagan.

The lights went dark in OK Falls, Kaleden and Twin Lakes just after 10 p.m.

FortisBC expected power would be restored after about two hours.

It's not known if the outage was connected to a much larger loss of power that affected a wide swath of the Boundary region.

About 4,000 residents of the area from Carmi to Grand Forks were without electricity  for hours after a falling tree damaged a transmission line near Rossland.

As of 9 p.m., Fortis tweeted it was making good progress on repairs, and that power would be repaired soon.

Christina Lake and Midway were also affected.

As of 6 a.m., the Fortis outage map showed only a handful of customers still powerless, east of Rock Creek.