BC Hydro scrambling to restore power after wind and lightning storm

A lightning strike is pictured in North Saanich, B.C., on Saturday, Aug. 17. (Courtesy: Erin Brown)

Thousands of British Columbians lost power after a storm brought wind and lightning to the southwestern region of the province overnight.

At the peak of the service disruption, BC Hydro says 20,000 customers were in the dark. At 7 a.m. on Sunday, BC Hydro’s website was reporting 8,762 customers affected, and by 10 a.m. that number dropped to 5,185.

At that time, most of the blackout was confined to Burnaby, but there were pockets throughout the Lower Mainland, the Sunshine Coast and Vancouver Island where “windstorm” or “trees down across wires” were cited as the cause of outages.

According to BC Hydro’s statistics, the power failures began around midnight and continued throughout the morning. A spokesperson says they called out crews overnight as the storm impacted lines.

On Saturday, Environment Canada issued a special weather statement warning that “strong winds, thunderstorms with heavy downpours and gusty winds” were expected late Saturday and into early Sunday morning.

BC Hydro says another smaller storm cell expected later Sunday isn’t anticipated to have the same impact, but that they’re ready to respond if service is affected.