Power outages continue in West Kelowna, schools closed

West Kelowna residents are bearing the brunt of the remaining power outages across the region with over 6,000 customers still impacted.

BC Hydro said late Tuesday morning, all power will be restored by the end of the day but could not be more specific on the timeframe. Some customers were reactivated for power by 1 p.m.

The outages forced the closures of four schools Tuesday: Rose Valley Elementary, Glenrosa Elementary, Glenrosa Middle and Helen Gorman Elementary.

In the Rose Valley area north of Aubrey Road, a total of 3,627 customers are affected.

An update posted by B.C. Hydro said crews continued to clean-up large areas of downed powerlines as well as restore power due to heavy wind and excessive rainfall. It said any available resources have been mobilized.

The cause of the outage is a tree across power lines and there was no immediate estimated time for a complete fix.

Also, there were 1,528 customers impacted by the outage West of Asquith Rd and North of Aberdeen Rd. An estimated time for repair was given as 6 p.m. Tuesday.

And a further 1,126 were without power west of Smith Creek Rd. It was not known when that outage would be resolved.

BC Hydro spokesperson Sally MacDonald told Kelowna10 they had brought extra crews and contractors in from parts of the Southern Interior and as far as Prince George to address widespread outages caused by falling trees on power lines.

She said the hot, dry summer had caused root systems to weaken making trees more susceptible to falling in high winds.

BC Hydro was reporting Tuesday morning over 160 outages across the province, 37 of those through the Okanagan valley.

Kelowna outages

Meanwhile, Fortis B.C. said a remaining 400 customers in Kelowan were still without power Tuesday. Up to 17,000 had been impacted on Monday.

The areas still affected are: North Glenmore, Downtown to Pandosy, and Upper Mission.

The utility said they expected all outages to be resolved by 3 p.m.