Big Bend businesses battle power outages

BC Hydro attributes the ongoing power failures in Burnaby's Big Bend area to an "unexpected sequence of events."

But this explanation isn't good enough for business owner Michael Williams, who estimates he lost more than $50,000 due to five power failures over the past eight days.

Between July 1 and July 4, power was out in the business area at Byrne Road and Marine Way for more than six and a half hours. On July 8, the lights went out again for another 20 minutes.

Williams, who owns Columbia Manufacturing and Columbia Glazing Systems, said there was no communication from BC Hydro about why the problem was happening.

"Power outages happen from time to time, but when you're talking about four days in a row, I think that says a lot about the capacity of the infrastructure. I'm not sure if BC Hydro has invested sufficiently to handle capacity. They're denying that, but there's no other explanation," said Williams, who estimates about 290 companies in the area were affected by the outages.

"I'm an average business. There's a lot bigger businesses than mine. People have to be paid, bills have to be paid. This is costing people a lot of money. A lot of work has to be redone. It's really frustrating for our staff."

Danny Letourneau, general manager of Canadian Tire in the Big Bend area, said their staff kept working in spite of the power failures.

'We just have to keep pushing our staff to do work. It was business as usual, power or not. If anything, you're more productive when there's no customers around," he said, adding that their power has gone out 15 to 20 times in the past year.

"We've had power outages before. We're getting good at it. But BC Hydro's going to have to step up to the plate in some way, shape or form."

BC Hydro spokesperson Simi Heer said the company is concerned about maintaining a relationship with its customers.

"We know it was equipment faillure. Crews are still looking into it. When stuff like this happens, we definitely do take it very seriously," she said.

"Our field managers in the area have assured me it's not a system problem. We are confident we have the infrastructure in place to deal with the growth and development in the area."

Mayor Derek Corrigan plans to write a letter to BC Hydro on behalf of the companies that have suffered financial falls.

"The economic loss to the businesses is huge. It's bad enough for businesses that are really stable, but for businesses that are marginal it can be really painful," he said.

jmcfee@burnabynewsleader.com