Map indicating areas impacted by the extended power outage/via BC Hydro
UPDATE 4 p.m. – Some pointed criticism at the provincial government from the Mayor of Clearwater due to a power outage that dragged on much longer than expected.
It comes after BC Hydro informed Merlin Blackwell Wednesday afternoon that crews needed to repair a transmission tower in the area that had been damaged by fire.
He says it was supposed to be a six-hour outage, starting at approximately 7 p.m. Wednesday, and wrapping up at around 1 a.m. Thursday.
However, the power did not come back on as planned.
“They needed to bring in bulldozers and things like that to make a road, by the sounds of it, and drag the trucks up there to do the work,” Blackwell said on NL Mornings.
“You better communicate it out to your community partners, because we have to start thinking about water conservation for fire flow. Everybody’s well in town is off, and the grocery store fridges are off.”
Super annoyed by this. District of Clearwater would’ve implemented water restrictions last night if we’d been aware.
Businesses would’ve kept staff home. People likely showing up to work locked out.
Gotta go charge my phone in the truck. pic.twitter.com/ik1eWiz1QU
— Merlin Blackwell, Clearwater Mayor 🤦♂️ (@BlackwellMerlin) August 22, 2024
The District of Clearwater issued a Voyent Alert to its residents to conserve water shortly after 9 a.m. Thursday.
Blackwell says it was because they were losing about five per cent of the water in the reservoir per hour as the electric pumps couldn’t refill it.
“We were expecting to run out at about 2 o’clock, so a decision was made to start hauling in water from On Call, one of the local services here,” Blackwell added, on NL Newsday. “But it really sucks. This has cost the District of Clearwater a lot of money.”
Power was eventually restored in the Clearwater-area just before 3:30 p.m. Thursday, ending a nearly 20 hour ordeal that also meant water had to be brought in to ensure that the Dr. Helmcken Memorial Hospital was able to stay open.
He also says there were issues with Telus cell towers in Vavenby and likely elsewhere.
“We were at the dregs of our water system,” Blackwell said.“We were trucking in water to keep fire flow for our reservoirs We were actually running city hall with a fire truck, with a generator off of a fire truck.”
“We were eight to 10 hours behind on emergency planning and we didn’t even have a chance tot even get on that ball until 6 o’clock in the morning. I’m pretty sure I woke up BC Hydro.”
Blackwell says the situation is also an indicator of a lack of investment provincial governments have put into infrastructure in the North Thompson.
“The BC NDP just announced months ago – I believe [Energy Minister] Josie Osbourne – a whole bunch of calls for independent power projects across BC, except for the North Thompson Valley, where we desperately need another power source,” noted Blackwell. “I frankly just don’t understand that one.”
At its peak, the power outage impacted around 3,000 BC Hydro customers in the North Thompson from just north of Little Fort to past Blue River.
“We’ve known about this for years. BC Hydro has known about this for years,” said Blackwell. “We’ve heard every excuse in the book why this line hasn’t been twinned or looped through MiCa Dam or from Prince George into Valemount so that we have power running from two directions.”
BC Hydro offers explanation
In a detailed note to Radio NL shortly after 10:30 a.m., BC Hydro has offered up an explanation for the situation.
“[BC Hydro] had to take a forced power outage Wednesday evening just after 7 p.m. to fix some BC Hydro infrastructure that is in critical need of attention,” said the statement. “The issue is located on the 1L210 line between Barriere and Vavenby. One of our transmission poles was found with cracked timbers. As a result the entire circuit had to be taken out from Heffley Creek to McBride while we began the work.”
“Shortly after the power was taken out last evening, it was returned to Barriere and all points south. Valemount and McBride were also supplied power through independent power producers. However, communities north of Barriere were without power last evening including Clearwater, Vavenby, Avola, and Blue River, and still remain out this morning,” continued BC Hydro.
“The reason why the outage is still ongoing is because access to the site proved more challenging than expected late Wednesday. Transmission crews got to the site (between Barriere and Vavenby) and were unable to access our damaged infrastructure. A path needs to be bulldozed up a steep incline and vehicles and equipment towed up to the worksite. This was not possible in the dark last night. We must put the safety of our crews first. We only learned this would be the case just before 11 p.m. last evening,” the statement continued.
“[BC Hydro] reached out to Mayor Blackwell along with all other stakeholders with the latest information at 6 a.m. this morning. [BC Hydro] also spoke with Mayor Blackwell by phone this morning,” stated BC Hydro.
“Mayor Blackwell has been asking on social media why we de-energized the line last night when we knew we could not fix it until today. This is a high voltage line. If we left it energized and the cracked timber broke off in the night and took the powerline down with it, there is an absolute threat of a forest fire being sparked. This is in no one’s best interest. Safety for all must come first.”
