Strong winds brought trees down and caused power outages across the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island as the second in a series of major storms hit the South Coast of B.C. Friday afternoon.
About 100,000 homes were without power across Metro Vancouver at the peak of outages at about 3 p.m. on Friday.
BC Hydro spokeswoman Simi Heer says crews are working through heavy rain and fallen trees to restore electricity to the 80,000 customers still without power, but she predicts the lights will remain off for some people until at least Saturday.
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Emergency personnel work at the scene near Clayton Heights Secondary in Surrey where a 15-year-old boy was killed Friday by a falling tree.
The afternoon turned tragic after a falling tree killed a 15-year-old student in Surrey. Emergency services found the teen pinned down by the tree, rescued and rushed him to the hospital where he later succumbed to his injuries and died.
High winds may have caused the tree to break causing this unfortunate accident, Cpl Scotty Schumann said in a news release. “The Surrey RCMP is asking people to stay out of wooded areas during periods of high wind.”
Wind warnings remain in effect for most of Vancouver Island, Howe Sound, Metro Vancouver, the Southern Gulf Islands and the Sunshine Coast. Winds are expected to reach 90 kilometres per hour by late afternoon, according to Environment Canada. The strong winds will ease later this evening before the next powerful storm arrives late Saturday.
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Trees down in the 3300 block of Kingsway. Vancouver police are asking people avoid the area.
A rainfall warning is in effect for Howe Sound, where an additional 20 to 30 millimetres of rain was expected to fall by Friday evening. Environment Canada warned that “heavy downpours can cause flash floods and water pooling on roads.”
The inclement weather has created numerous delays at Victoria’s airport, while Vancouver International is using a crosswind runway and shows no delays due to weather.
BC Ferries spokeswoman Debra Marshall says all sailings between Tsawwassen and the southern Gulf Islands were cancelled Friday afternoon due to heavy winds.
She says the 3 p.m. sailings on the Horseshoe Bay-to-Departure Bay run were also cancelled and at least a couple of ferries had to wait about two hours before docking.
Transit users were also experiencing delays after trees and branches necessitated diversions and threatened trolley wires. SkyTrain was slower than usual as staff cleared debris off the tracks. SeaBus remained unaffected.
On social media, people reported trees down across the Lower Mainland, including in Vancouver at 14th Avenue and Manitoba Street, on Park Drive between Granville and Oak streets and on Kingsway between Tyne and Joyce streets.
The Vancouver Police Department is asking people to avoid the 3300 block of Kingsway Avenue where a group of trees has toppled into power lines.
Trees also blocked Blundell Road in Richmond between No. 4 and No. 5 roads, and 96th Avenue in Surrey between 140th Street and Fraser Highway.
Fire halls received numerous calls about downed power lines in Langley, while a power outage in Surrey left people milling about the darkened Surrey Sport and Leisure Complex.
The University of the Fraser Valley has closed the Abbotsford campus due to a power outage, but Chilliwack, Clearbrook, and Mission campuses remain open.
Delta has closed all pedestrian access to Ladner Harbour Park and Fred Gingell Park due to high winds.
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![A tree fell onto trolley wires at Cambie and Dunsmuir in downtown Vancouver today, impacting service on the Cambie Street Bridge. Trolley overhead crew and Transit Supervisors are on scene and monitoring the service. City crews have been contacted to help remove the tree. [PNG Merlin Archive]](http://wpmedia.vancouversun.com/2016/10/a-tree-fell-onto-trolley-wires-at-cambie-and-dunsmuir-in-dow.jpeg?w=640)
A tree fell onto trolley wires at Cambie and Dunsmuir in downtown Vancouver today, impacting service on the Cambie Street Bridge. Trolley overhead crew and Transit Supervisors are on scene and monitoring the service. City crews have been contacted to help remove the tree.
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A car sits crushed by a tree in the driveway of a home on Silverdale Place following an overnight storm, in North Vancouver on Thursday.
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The third and potentially most powerful storm is expected to approach the coast late Saturday, bringing very strong winds (up to 100 km/h) and heavy rainfall.
Very strong southeast winds ahead of the storm are expected to develop over the South Coast late Saturday with winds shifting to southwesterlies Saturday night. Heavy rains caused a creek in Mission to overflow on Thursday night, flooding nearby businesses.
Thes storm, which started Wednesday night, was expected to dump 80 to 200 millimetres of precipitation in parts of the province, causing possible river flooding over the weekend. The public is being warned to stay clear of rivers and potentially unstable riverbanks.
Severe damage has already been recorded in some areas, including North Vancouver, where residents of a home on Silverdale Place were greeted Thursday morning by a large tree that had been brought down by the first in the series of storms, crushing an SUV that had been parked in the driveway.
More to come.
With files from Almas Meherally, Victoria Times Colonist and The Canadian Press
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