Mission public works officials are still counting the damage from Saturday’s powerful windstorm which downed trees and led to many Mission residents losing power — some for several days.
The widespread power outages were still being sorted out Monday morning, and a few residents remained without power on Tuesday, 72 hours after the storm struck.
As of 11 a.m. Monday, there were 28 separate outages in Mission remaining to be fixed. They affected about 1,000 BC Hydro customers.
Many of the remaining outages were in rural areas of the District of Mission, and there were still a few scattered small outages in areas in Fraser Valley Regional District to the east. However, power remained out on Monday at a commercial area on Lougheed Highway.
Hydro said that at the peak on Saturday, 13,446 Mission customers were without power. That number was down to 4,932 by Sunday and 1,432 by Monday. Crews were able to restore power to over half of customers by Sunday afternoon.
At Fraser River Heritage Park, work was underway Monday morning to clean up many downed branches. A portion of an ancient broadleaf maple tree also fell in the park, narrowly missing some newly-planted trees.
Truckloads of downed branches, mostly from cottonwood trees, were hauled away.
Eight District of Mission workers were out on the weekend to deal with problems caused by the windstorm.
Matt Dunham, operations manager for public works, said that “at least a dozen roads” were closed on Saturday due to downed trees and power lines.
On Wednesday, Dunham said district crews were still discovering problems they had to deal with, and damage estimates were continuing to grow. He does not expect to have a complete tally until next week.