Heavy rains last week followed by an even heavier windstorm Sunday night with gusts up to 100 km/h battered parts of the Coast, causing damage, power outages and cancelled ferries.
Dag Sharman, media relations for BC Hydro, said Southern B.C. experienced about 58,000 power outages at peak time between 7 and 8 a.m.
"The Sunshine Coast was particularly hard hit," Sharman said. "In Sechelt, it was a little over 8,200 [outages]."
As crews worked to restore power throughout the day on Monday, most Coast residents had their power back on by the afternoon. Parts of Halfmoon Bay and Pender Harbour, however, took until late Tuesday to have power restored. An area of Gambier Island called Take It Easy was not expected to have power until Wednesday afternoon.
Also notable was flooding at the south end of Davis Bay and a temporary road closure on Highway 101 when winds pushed high tide water from the Strait of Georgia over the concrete barriers, onto the road and into at least one resident's basement.
"There was a ton of debris -rocks, logs, probably some fish came up onto the road. The barriers that were in place helped tremendously to break the energy of the waves," said Bill Elsner, the Sunshine Coast Regional District's (SCRD) provincial emergency program co-ordinator.
Elsner said traffic had to be re-routed from about 7:30 to 10 a.m. while SCRD and District of Sechelt crews worked to clear the road, pump water from the ditches and remediate damage along the seawall. He said the force of the waves was enough to move some of the 970-kilogram barriers.
"The whole force of the Pacific Ocean was coming at us," he said.
Elsner said the heavy rains from last week also led to landslides in the Davis Bay area and that ground water levels remain very high. He said residents can help prevent landslides by making sure their culverts are clear and are allowing water to flow through.
School District No. 46 (SD46) had its own share of problems.
Halfmoon Bay Elementary School was closed for two days due to a prolonged power outage and hours had to be cut at Pender Harbour Secondary, Madeira Park Elementary, Cedar Grove Elementary and Langdale Elementary, according to SD46 superintendent Deborah Palmer. Palmer said downed power lines at Cedar Grove also meant students had to be dropped of at an area a few blocks from the school.
Some SCRD facilities were also affected by the wind. Debris on the road caused the Pender Harbour landfill to close temporarily, and Cal Bowles, manager of transit and ports, said the Hopkins Landing dock was damaged and is closed until Saturday for repairs to the ramp.
Deborah Marshall, spokesperson for B.C. Ferries, said the company was forced to cancel 38 sailings on 10 different routes on Monday, including one round trip on the Horseshoe Bay-Langdale route.
"We had a power outage at the Langdale terminal, and the emergency power generator wasn't working, so we had no power supply to operate the ramp," she said.
The outage cancelled the 7:20 a.m. ferry from Horseshoe Bay and the 8:20 sailing out of Langdale.
Marshall said B.C. Ferries sent electricians via water taxi to Langdale to work on the problem and determine why the generator wasn't working.
Elsner said the storm serves as a good reminder that people need to be prepared with appropriate food, water and supplies for emergencies, which are by no means limited to storms.
To contact Elsner during an emergency, call 604-885-0738, or after hours, call the Prov-incial Emergency Co-ordination Centre at 1-800-663-3456.
