ABBOTSFORD, B.C. - Tens of thousands of people in the Fraser Valley are still without electricity on Saturday as icy roads and poor visibility made it hard for crews to restore power.
BC Hydro says Mission and Abbotsford were the hardest hit communities after two ice storms slammed the region on Thursday and Friday, bringing down tree branches and power lines.
More than 100,000 people were initially affected by the outages -- 36,000 of whom had not had power restored by 8 a.m. on Saturday.
BC Hydro says crews -- including some who were brought in from other regions -- are working to restore power, but "difficult and dangerous conditions" such as icy roads, poor visibility and falling trees have made the effort more challenging.
Officials are reminding people to keep their distance and call 911 should they see a downed power line.
Check out this tree...it fell overnight roots and all. It completely blocked a road but residents are using chainsaws to cleanup @CTVVancouver #bcstorm pic.twitter.com/wjVVgllZRE
— Breanna Karstens-Smith (@BreannaCTV) December 30, 2017
Update on #FraserValley area: two ice storms have caused hundreds of individual power outages and affected over 100,000 total customers. As of 8am Saturday, 36,000 customers are without power and 82,000 have been restored so far. Hardest hit areas are #Abbotsford and #MissionBC.
— BC Hydro (@bchydro) December 30, 2017
Headed back out to the valley to check out the damage from #bcstorm Lots of broken trees lining the highway @CTVVancouver pic.twitter.com/Jyvy15lQBM
— Breanna Karstens-Smith (@BreannaCTV) December 30, 2017
Lights are out (and frozen) at several intersections including this one just off Hwy 1 at Whatcom Road @CTVVancouver #bcstorm pic.twitter.com/pMGczWM8Pi
— Breanna Karstens-Smith (@BreannaCTV) December 30, 2017
