BC Hydro brings more customers online in Interior
MERRITT: BC Hydro continues to make progress restoring electricity service to customers impacted by a storm and severe flooding on November 14 and 15.
The majority of customers along Highway 5 between Brookmere and the Box Canyon chain-up area were reconnected to the system on December 23. Four customers are still without service at Thynne Mountain. Underground work including excavation and trenching is planned for next week and service should be restored in early January.
Service has been restored to 122 customers in the City of Merritt since December 3. There are nine remaining customers without service in the city and their properties may be unhabitable due to extensive flooding damage.
Power has been restored to roughly 70 per cent of customers along the Highway 8 corridor where the storm and severe flooding destroyed 87 power poles and 14 transformers between Merritt and Spences Bridge. All of the remaining restorations in this area first require extensive reconstruction of Highway 8 and then large scale rebuilds of distribution lines in new locations. BC Hydro estimates this process will take several more weeks to complete.
There are now 63 customers without power in Merritt and the surrounding areas, down from 289 on December 6. The latest updates can be found at bchydro.com.