VICTORIA -- Thousands of Vancouver Island residents are without power Friday as a storm system sweeps across B.C. and the coast.
As of 9:40 a.m. Friday, approximately 2814 BC Hydro customers are without electricity throughout the north and south island.
The majority of the outages are located on northern Vancouver Island, with approximately 1705 people affected. While BC Hydro has determined the cause of one of the outages, which was due to a tree that had fallen across power lines, the rest of the outages remain under investigation.
The largest outage is located in the Oceanside area and spans from nearly Parksville down to Nanoose Bay, affecting approximately 1697 people. As per BC Hydro's latest update, crews have not yet arrived on scene and are expected to be in the area at approximately 10:05 a.m.
Meanwhile, roughly 1109 BC Hydro customers are without power across the south island on Friday. The majority of these outages are located in the Duncan and Lake Cowichan areas.
The most significant south island outage is located in the Lake Cowichan area, and affects approximately 532 people. Power in the area went offline at 7:10 a.m. Friday morning, according to BC Hydro.
The outages come on the same day that Environment Canada issued wind and rainfall warnings for many parts of Vancouver Island. The wind and rain is expected to escalate into Friday afternoon before diminishing in the late evening.
On Friday, the high winds and heavy rainfall also caused BC Ferries to cancel a number of sailings to and from the mainland to Vancouver Island.
The latest information on the power outages can be found on BC Hydro's website online here.
