Lightning Knocks Out Power Across East Kootenay Overnight

The East Kootenay was battered by lightning overnight, causing several power outages that affected nearly 10,000 customers at various times throughout the early morning hours on Wednesday.

According to BC Hydro, the majority of the power outages were due to “transmission circuit failure” as the longest outages were approximately four hours while other outages were as short as four minutes.

“At the peak of the storm last night, we had about 9,500 customers who were out of power and it was all over the region from Kimberley and Fort Steele all the way up to Canal Flats and Fairmont,” said Sally MacDonald, Public Affairs Officer with BC Hydro.

“Most of the damage was in the Valley running north to south and power was out for most of those customers for two hours,” MacDonald told MyEastKootenayNow.com. “Almost all of those outages were caused by lightning.”

The largest outages in Kimberley saw 5,382 customers without power from 12:08 am to 1:53 am, while 1,200 customers in Fairmont Hot Springs suffered power outages from 12:16 am to 2:03 am.

In the Cranbrook are, 531 customers lost power around 11:35 pm because of a “tree down across wires”, before it was fully restored around 3:14 am, while another 864 customers lost power at 12:16 am before it was restored at 2:03 am.

Here’s the full list of restored power outages overnight in the East Kootenay from BC Hydro: