BC Hydro plans to shut down all power to the North Island starting at 7 am on Thursday July 15th.
Some hydro poles and other equipment in the area are old and need to be replaced. Poles get flown in by helicopter, so workers need good weather and lots of daylight for safety. And that kind of heavy work can’t be done when the power is on.
So the power will be out from 7 am to 5 pm from Woss all the way to the northern tip of Vancouver Island.
During that time, BC Hydro also plans to cut back trees that are too close to the power lines. These trees can blow down in a wind storm and knock out power, which takes a long time to fix. North Islanders know what it’s like to have no power in bad weather. It’s no fun.
There is no such thing as a “good” day to shut the power off. A similar power outage last August made a lot of folks upset. People lost business, and life was already hard because of COVID-19 restrictions.
Maybe this time we should all plan to go camping that week.
