Repairs to power lines in Naramata will cause outages

Photo: Contributed

Ongoing fixes needed to power in Naramata.

FortisBC has scheduled an outage for customers who live in the northern area of Naramata Bench on May 12 from 5:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. so crews can safely replace several damaged transmission poles. 

“With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and many people working and studying from home, we recognize that any power outage is very disruptive right now so we’ve planned this outage very carefully,” said Shawn Conway, director of operations for FortisBC.

“Completing this work on schedule is necessary to keep the system running safely and reliably; replacing these structures now will prevent a larger, unplanned outage at a later time.”

In addition, FortisBC is working closely with the City of Penticton to reduce the number of customers affected by the outage. As a result of recent upgrades they’ve made to their system, the City will temporarily supply power to about 1,500 FortisBC customers that would have otherwise been affected by this outage.

Fortis encourages customers to prepare by charging their cell phones and laptops, turn off electronics ahead of time to prevent a power surge and keep the refrigerator and freezer closed as much as possible. Keep one light on as an alert to when the power is restored.

Residents are also encouraged to wait 10 to 15 minutes after the power has been fully restored before slowly turning everything back on. This will give the entire electrical system a chance to stabilize.

For up-to-date information about this and other power outages, click here.

*An earlier version of this story misconstrued this planned outage as related to an outage Monday in Naramata and Penticton. Castanet apologizes for the error, as the two are unrelated.