Update as of 4:15 PM
According to BC Hydro 913 people in the Central Interior, with the majority in PG are still without power.
Across the north, 3-thousand customers still don’t have their lights on with Burns Lake, Fort Saint James and Vanderhoof the hardest hit areas.
Updated Story at 11:30 AM
2,440 customers remain without power in the northern region, the hardest hit communities are Fort St. James and Vanderhoof.
BC Hydro and contracted workers are still working to clear debris and repair damages to impacted customers across the province.
Updated Story at 10:30 AM
Crews are working feverishly to restore power to several areas of the north as a nasty windstorm continues to pass though leaving thousands without power.
BC Hydro says the winds picked up between 8 and 9 pm last night (Wednesday) with several rural areas getting rocked.
Spokesperson, Mike Kellett told Vista Radio incidents like these aren’t uncommon for this time of year.
“We are definitely entering storm season now in the province and we are experiencing a lot of outages province-wide.”
“We got hit in Fort Saint James and got a pretty significant outage there and the storm has also struck Burns Lake, Vanderhoof, and here in the Prince George area.”
He mentioned some areas are harder to access when mass outages like this occur.
“Sometimes we have no access to a power line (in a rural area) and we have to find access to it. Then, of course, you get to the actual nature of the outage and what the fix and some of those will take a bit more time than others.”
“Some of the things that affect the timeline for the power going back on are things like the location of a downed tree, perhaps it has fallen on the line in the middle of nowhere so to speak. It can take a few hours for some crews to be able to drive there.”
Kellett added the majority of outages in PG are outside of the bowl area.
There is no estimated timeline as to when power will be restored to the region.
Original Story at 7:50 AM
A wind warning has been issued for Prince George, Vanderhoof, Fort St. James, and surrounding communities.
According to Environment Canada, a vigorous frontal system moving across the province has generated strong winds of 60 km/h gusting to 90.
Those winds may cause damage.
They should ease late this morning (Thursday) with southwest winds 40 km/h gusting to 60 expected for the remainder of the day.
Province-wide, about 12,000 customers are without power; over half of those are located in the north (6,800) while another 18-hundred are in the Central Interior, which includes PG.
However, several power outages still remain in Burns Lake, Smithers, Vanderhoof, and Fort Saint James