B.C. storm knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of customers

VANCOUVER -

Tens of thousands of customers were without power across B.C. through the day on Monday, and hundreds of thousands over the weekend, as a storm hit a wide swath of the province.

BC Hydro's outage data showed there were about 59,300 customers in the dark as of about 2:30 p.m., the majority of whom are living in the Lower Mainland and Sunshine Coast area.

In the hours that followed, another 30,000 customers lost power, including about 10,500 in the Okanagan/Kootenay area.

And it was much worse earlier in the day. The utility's list of outages that have since been restored impacted 297,314 customers.

Unclear is how many were actually without power due to the storm that has been passing over the province over the weekend and into Monday. About 12,400 of those customers live in B.C.'s northern region, which is not under any public weather alerts, and the restoration list includes outages over a period of a few days.

BC Hydro's outages map is cluttered with red dots denoting outages across the Lower Mainland and in B.C.'s Interior.

The corporation posted a written update on the Lower Mainland/Sunshine Coast outages Monday afternoon, saying the weather and a damaged transmission line were to blame for the outages in the area, and that all available crews are working to restore power.

An update posted on BC Hydro's website at 11 a.m. Monday on the Merritt area said crews were unable at that time to access damaged equipment due to "flooding and hazards."

Earlier on Monday the entire City of Merritt was put under evacuation order due to flooding and other storm-related safety hazards.

For the latest on the outage in your area, including through the night, visit BC Hydro's power outages page. It allows users to search outages using their location or address, or by viewing a list or map.