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Power outages affect thousands in Greater Victoria Saturday morning

BC Hydro said the outages affected 16,162 on the south Island as of 10 a.m.
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Power outages in Greater Victoria on Aug. 21. (Photo courtesy of BC Hydro)

Crews have restored power in Greater Victoria after thousands were impacted by the outages Saturday morning.

BC Hydro said the outages affected 16,162 customers on the south Island and power had been restored by around 11:15 a.m.

As of 10 a.m., BC Hydro said outages spanning Greater Victoria were under investigation and crews had already been assigned to some of the affected areas.

Around 10:15 a.m., BC Hydro said crews were on-site in Saanich, where they were dealing with an outage caused by a transmission circuit failure – 2,905 customers in the area had been without power since about 9:50 a.m.

Transmission circuit failures are a type of outage that occurs when a major transmission line is unable to deliver electricity. This, BC Hydro says, could be caused by a number of factors, like a damaged transmission tower or a lightning strike. The power provider said repairs for this type of outage can be prolonged because it may be difficult to find the issue and special equipment is sometimes needed.

Transmission circuit failures were also responsible for some outages in Victoria, Oak Bay, Highlands, Langford and View Royal.

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