BC Hydro estimates 56,000 customers in Chilliwack, Abbotsford and surrounding areas lost power Monday

UPDATE #3: BC Hydro estimates over 56,000 customers spanning Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Harrison Hot Springs, Agassiz, Seabird Island, and the surrounding areas. Power has since been restored to all of the affected areas.

UPDATE #2, 1:48 P.M. MONDAY: BC Hydro’s online dashboard indicates power has been restored to Chilliwack, Agassiz, Harrison Hot Springs, Seabird Island and Abbotsford. There’s one planned outage in the Cultus Lake area involving 37 customers, but otherwise, most everyone has power restored.

UPDATE, 1:25 P.M. MONDAY: Residents on First Avenue east of Chilliwack and another in Eastern Hillsides are reporting that their power has been restored, following a massive outage that saw over 33,000 customers in the eastern Fraser Valley lose power just after noon Monday.

Of note, BC Hydro’s online outage dashboard continues to show outages in Chilliwack, Abbotsford, Agassiz, Harrison Hot Springs, and Seabird Island.

Original story: 

CHILLIWACK – Tens of thousands of customers in Chilliwack and thousands more across the Fraser Valley are without power Monday due to a major outage.

According to BC Hydro’s online dashboard, over 26,000 customers spanning 11 outages lost power in Chilliwack shortly after noon.

Businesses appear closed, including FreshCo and Envision in the downtown area, and traffic is severely constrained across the city due to traffic signals not working. For example, traffic is bumper to bumper on Eagle Landing Parkway as of 1:05 p.m., due to traffic signals not working.

Multiple outages affecting over 4,000 customers in Abbotsford are being reported similarly. A substation fault is being cited as the cause for the Abbotsford-area outages.

In Agassiz, over 1,000 customers lost power.

In Seabird Island/District of Kent, over 1,800 customers lost power.

In Harrison Hot Springs, over 1,100 customers lost power.

BC Hydro’s online dashboard indicates the outages are due to a transmission circuit failure and/or substation fault.