Heavy rain and wind gusting up to 100 km/hour battered the Sunshine Coast on Wednesday leaving more than 6,500 people between Roberts Creek and Egmont without power. The entire population of Gambier and Keats Islands were also without power following the storm, a total of about 560 homes.
The savage storm snapped trees like twigs and ripped down power lines, caused roadways to flood and left many without power or phone service for well over 24 hours.
Madeira Park, Halfmoon Bay and West Sechelt Elementary schools and Pender Harbour and Chatelech Secondary schools were closed after teachers arrived and found no electricity was available.
"We didn't even know the power was out until staff started arriving at schools," superintendent of schools Stewart Hercus said. "By then the students were already on their way. We have a phone tree in place to let parents know about closures but if we don't know before 6:30 a.m. we really don't have time to initiate it properly."
Hercus noted many students didn't make it to school on Wednesday with parents anticipating power outages, but those who came ended up waiting for a parent to pick them up or a bus to be arranged to take them back home.
"We had to hold some students at Madeira Park until about 1 p.m. because the road out there was in terrible shape, but most students were on their way home earlier in the morning," Hercus said.
Some students were reportedly stuck waiting in a school bus near Ruby Lake while a downed tree blocking the roadway was removed.
"They had turned around and were heading back to Egmont when they got stopped by the tree," said Coast Reporter columnist Beverly Saunders.
Pender Harbour/Egmont director John Rees noted residents in south Pender were still on a boil water advisory when the storm struck, making it nearly impossible to boil water to drink unless a camp stove and fuel could be found.
He also said all of the businesses were closed in the area so that bottled water could not be bought locally and travel to Sechelt was not advised due to downed trees and poor driving conditions.
The downed trees made it difficult for emergency crews to access certain areas so the B.C. Ambulance Service sent two extra crews out to Pender Harbour to be stationed there in case of emergency.
Two crews were also stationed and ready to respond in Gibsons, and three were kept in Sechelt.
"We managed to up staff and add some extra resourceswe stationed a couple of cars in the Egmont area as they had no phone or cell service up there, and one unit is scheduled to stay there until services are restored," said Roger Munn, paramedic chief in Sechelt.
Munn noted that call volumes didn't seem to rise during the storm.
"I think a lot of people were staying in and staying warm and dry for the most part," he said.
Fire departments from Roberts Creek to Egmont were busy keeping people back from downed lines and diverting traffic while BC Hydro crews attempted to restore power to homes, traffic lights and businesses.
"For us the day started at about 4:45 a.m. when we got a call for a tsunami warning. There had been an earthquake in Japan," said Sechelt fire chief Bill Higgs.
Higgs said the possible tsunami wasn't a worry for the Sunshine Coast, as it would have hit Vancouver Island and not made it to our shoreline, but the emergency response procedure is to let all first responders know about the possible threat."From there we got right into calls with wires down," Higgs said.
The fire department kept students back from downed lines at Chatelech Secondary School and rescued a District of Sechelt employee trapped in his vehicle on Sechelt Inlet Road beneath a downed line.
Fire crews diverted traffic where necessary and set up perimeters to keep the public safe from dangerous live wires, all the while careful not to get stuck between falling trees themselves.
"Mostly our job was to just keep people away from the lines," Higgs said. "They are an unthreatening looking thing, but what people don't realize is the hydro lines that go to their houses are insulated and the ones on the highway are un-insulated and very high voltage. If you touch them, or touch a tree they are touching you could be electrocuted and killed in an instant. They might not be smoking or burning or making any noise but they could be live and they could kill you."
He mentioned an incident in Secret Cove where a resident tried to drive through downed lines and when the car got tangled within them, tried to untangle the lines and drive free.
"Thank God the lines were dead because if they weren't that person could have been killed," Higgs said.
Roberts Creek firefighters responded to their first call at 6:30 a.m. with wires down in the 2700 block of Highway 101. Throughout the day they attended four incidents, rerouting traffic along flooded roadways and setting up safety perimeters around downed lines while waiting for BC Hydro to attend.
"We had a simultaneous washout on the highway near Cliff Gilker Park and on Lower Road near Cheryl Ann Park," said Roberts Creek fire chief Bruce Searle.
Traffic was reduced to only a single lane on the highway because of the flooding, while the flooding on Lower Road forced a full road closure.
"The flooding on Lower Road left gas lines exposed for about 30 feet as well as the water main and it undermined the pavement," Searle said.
The Pender Harbour and Halfmoon Bay fire departments were also busy diverting traffic and manning downed lines for safety, with most volunteer crews putting in a full day's work to safeguard the public.
The only department that didn't get called into action was Gibsons Fire Department with fire chief Bob Stevens saying, "we didn't even turn a wheel."
Gibsons seemed to get through the storm unscathed with a few power outages, but no downed lines in the area Wednesday.
Sunshine Coast RCMP helped divert traffic and dealt with a few accidents during the storm, with Staff Sgt. Brad Zalys saying the focus of their efforts were in Sechelt.
"Our big concern was West Sechelt and any more trees coming down there. That was a danger. We were pretty tied up here in Sechelt. We tried getting up to Pender Harbour but there was too much going on here [in Sechelt]," Zalys said.
As of Thursday morning at Coast Reporter deadline there were still 2,700 homes without power between Roberts Creek and Egmont. Gibsons reportedly suffered a power outage overnight between Gibsons Landing and Port Mellon, along the Port Mellon Highway with a downed tree across a line cutting the power off in 1,406 homes.
Power was still an issue for Halfmoon Bay Elementary, Chatelech Secondary, Pender Harbour Secondary and Madeira Park Elementary, so those schools were closed for the second straight day and Langdale Elementary was closed due to the overnight power outage.
The school district expected all schools on the Coast to reopen today (Friday).
BC Hydro community relations manager Arlene Shwetz told Coast Reporter power was expected to be restored to the entire Sunshine Coast and Keats and Gambier Islands by 6 p.m. Thursday evening.
Sunshine Coast BC Hydro crews worked from daylight until 10 p.m. Wednesday to try to restore power, but just couldn't get to all the downed lines before calling it a day.
"They had to stop at 10 p.m. for safety purposes," Shwetz said.
