Terrace, B.C.-  B.C. Hydro expects to have power at least partially restored to the Nass Valley by tonight. New Aiyansh will likely be back on line by about 6 this evening.

 

BC Hydro spokesperson Bob Gammer says  there are three crews in the area making repairs “One of the crews would stay in New Aiyansh to work on the restoration of that community the other two crews will would go on down the line to Canyon City and Greenville, hoping to have them back on line before they (the crews) time out for the day.” Gammer says crews can work for 16 hours, but for safety reasons they have to take an 8 hour rest break. He says it is hoped that all communities in the Nass will be back on line by no later than noon tomorrow.

 

Gammer says BC Hydro values all its customers but when there is an outage such as the one that resulted from Sunday morning’s windstorm through the northwest, crews attempt to repair those circuits which have the largest number of customers first. 

 

 “I think we have made good progress” says Gammer “Currently we are still sitting around eleven hundred customers who are without power.”  Following Sunday’s storm, it was estimated more than 25 thousand people were without power.

 

 Gammer says the nature of the damage in any one area can become very time consuming for several crews “by the reports that I’ve heard today from our line manager, our crews in the Nass Valley have made good progress so we feel we have a good compliment with the three crews we have there, plus we have a tree clearing crew there as well.”

 

Nisga’a Nation President Mitchell Stevens complained earlier today that nearly 800 of his people have been without power since Sunday’s storm and he said there has been little BC Hydro presence in the area.