Lightning strike plunges entirety of northwest B.C. into dark, thousands without power
More than 45,000 customers across northwest B.C. are without power after an outage at about 4:20 p.m. PT.
The B.C. Hydro dashboard shows it is impacting the entire region from Vanderhoof, about 100 kilometres west of Prince George, all the way to Prince Rupert, more than 500 kilometres away as the crow flies.
Haida Gwaii and parts of the far northwest around Stewart are also impacted.
In an update posted online, the power provider says a lightning strike is to blame, with crews working to "restore service as quickly as possible."
B.C. Hydro spokesperson Mike Kellett said resotration work would have to be done in stages, staring in Vanderhoof and working westward.
He said it was expected power would be back "in a few hours."
Kellett said due to the wide scale of the outage, it is likely the sole transmission line supplying power from Prince George to Prince Rupert had been impacted.
Northwest B.C. does not have backup transmission lines, which makes the region susceptible to large-scale outages.
In 2024, B.C. Premier David Eby announced plans to build new transmission lines between Prince George and Terrace in order to provide more reliable power to industrial customers in the region.
There are no current reports of outages from phone or internet providers, though the region has also experienced loss of communications in the past, such as a 2022 incident in which a beaver downed a tree onto some lines, knocking out cellphones and internet for several hours.
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