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Thousands of homes were left without power Monday as strong winds battered British Columbia’s coastal areas and much of the province’s central interior.

For many customers, outages could continue overnight.

BC Hydro warns of this possibility for customers southern Vancouver Islandas well as Gambier, Keats, Texada and Bowen Islands.

As of 4:30 p.m. PT on Monday, approximately 100,000 customers were still without power, according to BC Hydro, with the majority of them in the Lower Mainland.

However, Vancouver Island also saw tens of thousands of customers lose power throughout the day Monday. Hundreds more were facing outages in the Okanagan and Kootenay regions.

“Today’s strong wind and heavy rain toppled trees and branches – many weakened by the multi-year drought – causing them to come into contact with BC Hydro’s electrical equipment.” the company said in a press release, adding that anyone seeing a power line outage should call 911 and stay at least 10 meters away.

In a notice Posted on its website Monday afternoon, BC Hydro says it will address outages in order of priority.

“Our first priority is outages involving downed lines and situations that pose a risk to public safety,” he said. “Next, crews will focus on restoring power to critical and municipal services, followed by major outages affecting the greatest number of customers, and then more minor outages.”

WATCH | A fallen wire starts an electrical fire:

Electrical fire sparked by windstorm on Vancouver Island

Highlands District Fire Services near Victoria, British Columbia, released video of an electrical fire sparked by a fallen wire during a windstorm on Vancouver Island on November 4, 2024 , as a reminder of the need to stay away from any damaged power supply. lines.

Wind warnings have been issued for much of the province.

“Loose objects can be thrown by the wind and cause injury or damage. High winds can lead to power outages and fallen tree branches,” Environment Canada said in its warnings.

Lisa Erven, a meteorologist at the weather bureau, said wind gusts of up to 108 km/h were reported in Victoria.

“Even where there is no wind warning, we still expect widespread moderate to strong wind gusts across the province,” she said. “This is a storm that is not just impacting one corner, but is crossing all of British Columbia”

“Powerful storm system”

The national government’s weather agency said a “powerful storm system” hit the south coast after midnight on Monday.

A special weather statement was also issued for Vancouver Island, where Environment Canada predicted 70 to 100 millimeters of rain could fall on the mountains of western Vancouver Island.

BC Ferries says several crossings have been delayed due to weather conditions.

In the mountain passes of southern British Columbia, the forecaster issued special weather statements warning of blowing snow on stretches like the Coquihalla Highway (Highway 5) from Hope to Merritt and Highway 3 from Paulson Summit to Kootenay Pass .

“Strong southerly winds ahead of the front and snow upstream will arrive Monday,” the statement said.

“Snow accumulations on the highest peaks like Coquihalla and Kootenay Pass could exceed 20 centimeters on Monday,” it added.

Zhong said with snow and strong winds, blowing snow could cause low visibility for drivers Monday afternoon.

Storm warnings come just over two weeks later an atmospheric river brought significant rain to the south coast, leading to the death of at least four people after mudslides and floods.

Zhong said the rainfall totals for Monday’s storm would not come close to those that occurred during the atmospheric river event, but there could still be some localized flooding or mudslides in the mountains.