By Dave Branco

Hydro explains

Hydro explains mass outage

Sep 12, 2019 | 11:28 AM

PRINCE GEORGE – Most of Northern B.C was left in the dark Wednesday night. Just before 9:00 p.m. B.C Hydro confirmed lightning caused a massive outage which left more than 120,000 B.C Hydro customers without power.

In Prince George, power was restored within 20 minutes while in some other communities like Dawson Creek and Fort St.John, they didn’t have power restored until after 11:00 p.m.

The only community which was not affected by the power outage Wednesday night was Fort Nelson. This is due to the community being on an Alberta power grid.

With the power out for just 20 minutes in Prince George, the Fire Department did not experience an influx of calls during that time.

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“We had just a minimum amount of calls,” shared Deputy Fire Chief Blake King.

“Some false alarm calls related to the power going out and then when the power came on some commercial and residential. Just four calls. No major incidents.”

However, an incident like this provides a reminder to residents to be prepared for any type of emergency.

“You should have 2 litres of water for everybody in your family per day. You should have some non perishable food to feed your family for a few days. Medications that you need and know where they are at. Also toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and some small tools. You can actually go to the Government of Canada emergency preparedness (getprepared.gc.ca) and they will have a list of what you should have up on their website.” added King.

The last time an incident like this happened was 2006, but at this time B.C Hydro is unaware of where the lightning strike did occur.