Power outages early Wednesday morning shut off electricity from Barriere to north of McBride.
The major outage began at about midnight and was not corrected until after 9 a.m.
According to BC Hydro spokesperson Jennifer Walker-Larson, the cause of the disruption was a damaged cross-arm on the transmission line. It was not located until 4 a.m. and repairs took place after that.
A very active electrical storm passed through the area the evening before the outage.
Interestingly, the residents of the McBride did not suffer from the outage.
A distribution line serves that village from Valemount, explained Walker-Larson. Because this makes it even more susceptible to outages, the corporation has installed a backup diesel generator that kicks in whenever the power goes out.
There is an agreement with Hystad Creek small-scale hydro project to provide electricity to downtown Valemount during an extended power outage, said Walker-Larson. However, that agreement was not activated because it was it was anticipated the outage would not last that long.
The BC Hydro spokesperson was not aware of any similar agreement with the Bone Creek hydro plant to provide backup power to Blue River or other North Thompson communities.