As the heavy rains hit the Sunshine Coast last Saturday, high winds took down trees, hydro and telephone lines.
A power outage occurred in the Egmont area at 1:52 p.m. caused by a fallen tree in Moccasin Valley, resulting in power outages for 184 customers.
Author Jean Barman was just beginning her reading at the Egmont Heritage Centre when the power went out. Ironically, part of her talk focused on the small communities in British Columbia and how people stayed independent and were very resourceful, caring and self-confident.
The audience waited patiently as a generator was brought to the museum and the talk proceeded. Everyone seemed to take it all in stride.
Crews were able to restore power by 5:56 p.m., reported BC Hydro community relations spokesperson Arlene Shwetz. There were also outages in Roberts Creek, Halfmoon Bay, parts of Sechelt and in Powell River.
Telus had a more difficult time restoring telephone service in Egmont. Most of Egmont residents were without a telephone until late Tuesday afternoon. In Egmont, where there is no cell phone service and only dial-up Internet for most people, this meant no communication. A few residents have satellite Internet and were able to go online, while others used their marine radios to stay in contact.
Telus media relations spokesperson Shawn Hall related that this was an unusual situation. The downed hydro lines fell on the Telus lines which caused a power surge. This surge took out all the repeaters in Egmont, 12 in all. "Usually we can fix the problem in the central office by replacing the cards," said Hall. "This was not the case this time and we had to send up special technicians and equipment from the Lower Mainland. We put a crew on around the clock to get Egmont up and running."
There are two circuits in Egmont, which is why the telephone service came back to customers in a staggered manner, Hall added.
Telus was able to replace the cards for one circuit and those customers received their service back late Saturday. The other circuit that covered main Egmont had all the repeaters out. One hundred and twenty-four Telus customers were affected. Service was restored at 2:45 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 7.
Vicky Martin, owner of Bathgate's General Store, used her Internet to contact Telus and report the outage. She said she became frustrated when it was clear in the replies that they did not grasp the situation.
"I received numerous answers back that stated they had received my report and would come to my home if they could not fix it from there," said Martin. She tried to communicate to them that there was no cellular service in Egmont and therefore no 911 emergency calling.This seemed to be the main concern of many Egmont residents. If there had been a medical emergency, there was no way to call for help.
Hall said the normal procedure when all service is out is that Telus will contact local officials and let them know. The local fire department or medical personnel will be alerted and will put on extra crew to meet emergency needs, he added.
Although Egmont is currently forming a fire department and some firefighters have training, they are not officially on emergency call. Fire Chief Peter Sly said that until the fire hall is built and the communications tower is up, there is no communication or 911 service and they cannot meet Egmont's emergency needs at this time.
Businesses in town were left without Interac or credit card charge service for their customers. Customers had to have cash or a charge account already set up. Other residents reported that they relied on the Internet to pay their bills and were late paying or had to make a trip to the bank to pay them. Most people expressed dissatisfaction that it took four days to get the phone lines repaired.
Fibre optic lines will be brought down the Coast. However, Egmont is not part of this particular project at this time.
Usually the first communities to get this service are the ones with hospitals, schools and fire departments or libraries. Egmont could figure into future plans, but for now Egmont will have to wait and hope that their new fire department will put them on the list for future updates.
