\While more than 100,000 Lower Mainland residents were without power thanks to the windstorm that hit the region overnight, the wind has had minimal impact in New Westminster.
Fire Chief Tim Armstrong said the city didn’t activate its emergency operations centre, but the fire department enacted its departmental operations centre about 7:30 a.m. today (Thursday). Fire officials were in the centre and kept in communication with other departments dealing with damage from the storm.
“It was just to get a handle on what’s going on out there with police, fire, engineering, parks and rec, and coordinate any response we need in the area,” Armstrong said. “It’s quieted down now. We had a few trees down, a few power lines down.”
A large tree came down on Princess Street, near Herbert Spencer Elementary school, but it didn’t impact the school.
“The wind has calmed down,” Armstrong said. “We are ramping things down.”
Several people on Twitter thanked the city for getting their power up so quick, including Urban Academy’s school at Robson Manor.
With the worst of the wind storm over, the departments are taking care of the downed powerlines and trees.
“There was a report of one large tree down,” Armstrong said, “and a couple of wires-down calls.”
Blair Fryer, the city’s communications manager, said the electrical utility reported there were “no significant” issues as of 9 a.m.
The city’s engineering operations department crews put out barricades and closed a few roads to support emergency responders and electrical crews, until they could address downed wires.
Some schools in Abbotsford, Surrey, Langley and Mission were closed as a result of power outages. The Corporation of Delta activated its emergency operations centre because of flooding in Tsawwassen and Ladner.
“We didn’t have any pumps out, we didn’t have any flooding that I’m aware of,” said Jon McDonald, the city’s manager of engineering operations. “We lucked out on that.”
