A wicked wind blows
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Updated: November 17, 2009 11:54 AM
Mother Nature to do some damage in Abbotsford on Tuesday.
After the area was hit by 20 power outages on Monday, high overnight winds caused another 19 Tuesday. Rain pummeled the area during the night.
Environment Canada was predicting the wind would continue throughout the day. Showers with winds between 40 and 60 kilometres an hour were predicted overnight and into Wednesday.
Mennonite Educational Institute's secondary, middle and elementary schools on Clearbrook Road and Downes Road were closed to classes Tuesday because of a power outage at the institutions. Cornerstone Christian school on Gladwin Road was also closed Tuesday due to an outage.
Some city streets were being flooded, including one lane on Tretheway.
A tree was reported burning on Sumas Prairie, but the fire department had to wait for BC Hydro to arrive to cut off the power because the tree had fallen on a live wire.
The winds began to hit Abbotsford hard just before 11 p.m., when the airport recorded it coming out of the south at 65 km/h with gusts up to 84 km/h. The heavy winds and rain, which at times was also heavy, continued for more than three hours.
While the strength let up in the middle of the night, by 4 a.m. the gusts were back up to 61 km/h.
The wind caused several areas to lose power either overnight, during the night or as residents awoke. Two outages that began before midnight had not been restored to power by 9 a.m.
The following areas were suffering power outages caused by Tuesday's windstorm as of 9 a.m. BC Hydro was estimating the time for all of them to regain their power by 10 a.m., but later in the morning changed the estimate to 6 p.m.
• North of Huntingdon Road, east of Tracey Street, West of McCallum, south of freeway, 10:43 p.m., Monday
• North of Hawthorne, west of Beck, east of Emerson, south of Arcadian, 11:35 p.m., Monday
• East of 334, north of Sandon, south of Armstrong, 11:35 p.m.
• 37600 Maher Road, 8:08 a.m.
• 32100 block South Fraser Way, 7:26 a.m.
• 3300 block McKee Way, 2:17 a.m.
• 32700 block Chehalis Drive, 5:44 a.m.
• 800-900 block Bowman Road, 2:05 a.m.
• 6700 block Lefeuvre Road, 2:45 a.m.
• 38400 block south Parrallel Road, 7:49 a.m.
• 34000 block Woodbine Street, 6:23 a.m.
• 32100 block Melmar, 7:18 a.m.
• 6100 Nathan Place, 7:17 a.m.
• 3400 Okanagan Drive, 7:05 a.m.
Five other areas in Abbotsford were hit by outages but power had been restored by 9 a.m.
Grant GRANGER
Abbotsford News
Monday morning’s high winds and incessant rain had BC Hydro hustling to take care of 20 power failures in Abbotsford.
With gusts reaching up to 90 kilometres an hour, the outages began during the night, around 2 to 3 a.m. At its peak, between 7 and 8 a.m., there were 3,334 customers affected in Abbotsford, said BC Hydro spokesman Dag Sharman, but by 9 o’clock it was down to 700.
Sharman said crews anticipated all power would be back up and running later in the afternoon.
The longest outage lasted more than 10 hours, south of McTavish Road, north of Taylor, east of Bradner Road and west of Lancelot. It started at 1:43 a.m. with electricity flowing again just before noon.
Other outages lasted from one to six hours, primarily from downed trees.
Temperatures climbed to 13 C Monday, along with a deluge of rain, expected to be 20 to 30 millimetres.
Environment Canada was forecasting that showers were to continue Tuesday morning, accompanied by 50 to 70 km/h gusts.
That was to drop to 30 km/h and lower late in the day.
The forecast calls for the rain to continue through the rest of the week, but with no wind warnings.
Saturday and Sunday can expect rain mixed with snow, although the temperature isn’t expected to drop below 3 C.
The weather also caused Abbotsford Police to be busy, mostly chasing false alarms.
The power going on and off can trigger house alarms, while something blowing around the home often sets off motion sensors, said Const. Ian MacDonald.
“Of course you have to investigate it as if it’s a break and enter, and they’re arriving only to find the house is generally secured but is either in an area with a power outage, or due to rain or wind might have caused a false alarm,” said MacDonald.
While there was some anticipation of flooding problems in the Valley, those had not manifested by Monday night.
