The 2023 edition of “Snowmageddon” brought considerable havoc to Cranbrook on Friday evening, particularly to the power supply.
Overnight Thursday and into Friday, Jan. 27, more than a foot of snow fell on Cranbrook — 30 centimetres. Tree branches around town became weighted down, and came crashing into power lines.
Sally McDonald with BC Hydro said it was a very busy weekend for Hydro crews, with outages in 13 different areas around Cranbrook.
The widespread power outages were specific to Cranbrook, MacDonald said. There were no outages reported in Kimberley or Fernie, where the snow was also falling heavily.
“It was heavy snow on trees and branches, and then they fell on the distribution lines, which knocked out the power.”
The power was out for 4,500 B.C. Hydro customers on Friday night. Crews worked from Friday evening through to noon on Saturday, when the power was restored to the last of the customers who’d been hit by outages. And BC Hydro brought in crews from the Fernie office to help out.
“It’s good that we have that extra resource locally that we can draw on,” MacDonald said.
BC Hydro wanted to thank its Cranbrook customers for their patience, “while we fixed the damage and got the lights back on.”