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UPDATED: Tree takes out Saanich power lines, adding to Tuesday’s mass outages

Nearly 2,000 Greater Victoria customers without power Tuesday evening
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Crews clear tree branches from the McKenzie Avenue exit off Highway 17 in Saanich amid wind and rain on Jan. 5. (Devon Bidal/News Staff)

A fallen tree at the intersection of Feltham Road and Shelbourne Street is one of multiple reasons why nearly 2,000 Greater Victoria customers remain without power Tuesday evening.

Saanich fire and police closed the area to traffic while BC Hydro crews dealt with a power line that the tree took out shortly before 5 p.m. Pedestrians were directed to stay far away from the intersection.

With southeasterly winds of 70 to 90 km/h occurring throughout the day, power lines took a hit across the region.

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As of 7 p.m., 1,970 Greater Victoria customers remained without power, down from nearly 7,000 earlier in the day.

Nearly all of those – 1,946 – were Saanich customers south of Kenmore Road and north of McKenzie Avenue between Graduation Way and Borden Street who lost power at 2:45 p.m. According to the BC Hydro outage map, the cause of the outage was still under investigation as of 7 p.m. and crews were on-site.

A small outage was affecting less than five people in the 3400-block of Cardiff Place, where customers had been without power since 3:15 p.m. Crews were on their way at 7 p.m.

READ ALSO: Storms prompt downed power line warning from BC Hydro

In the 1600-block of Sheridan Avenue 11 people had lost power since 2:52 p.m. The cause remained under investigation Tuesday evening and crews were on-site.

Finally, in the 4200-block of Quadra Street BC Hydro cited the wind storm for leaving eight customers without power since 3:45 p.m. Crews had been assigned as of 7 p.m.

According to Environment Canada, the winds are expected to ease by Tuesday night.


@devonscarlett
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devon.bidal@saanichnews.com

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Crews clear tree branches from the McKenzie Avenue exit off Highway 17 in Saanich amid wind and rain on Jan. 5. (Devon Bidal/News Staff)