General News · 8th May 2009
Ted Olynyk
I would like to provide an update to all of customers on Cortes Island regarding the recent string of unplanned outages and the challenges our crews had of keeping power on. However, before I do that I would like to thank you for your patience during this 24-hr period.
Because there was no obvious cause, such as a storm or MVA, I thought it would be best to try and explain what happened. While the initial outage was not obvious, our crews did remove a tree on the Powell River-side of the water and a restore a downed line on Cortes Island. However, after each attempt to restore power, something else seemed to trip the system. I know that some of you had power for differing periods throughout the day and into the evening hours, but all woke up on Friday with no power.
Crews flew in first thing on Friday to bring the system back up. They thought would have it up by early morning, but again it tripped. Crews tried to isolate possible causes believing it may be equipment related, but with little success of it holding it eliminated it as the sole reason. It appears loading was a major factor. Our crews were able to bring the Island up bit by bit Friday morning. So far, this has seemed to stabilize the system. Crews were kept on the Island until the afternoon to ensure there were no further problems.
We regret any inconvenience this has caused the community of Cortes Island. Through vegetation management and system resiliency work to improve the distribution system we are hoping to lessen impacts to our customers. While we will never eliminate outages completely, we hope the work we do will lessen the duration and frequency of outages. Thank you once again for your patience.
Filing a claim
Comment by Becky Knutson on 9th May 2009
If you have had loss of income directly related to our string of power outages you may open a claim through customer service.