30 November 2006
Field Residents Suffer Marathon Power Loss
Field British Columbia - Residents of Field, B.C. spent a
frosty 19 hours without heat and electricity in minus 40 degree weather this week, and residents say that now that the power's back
on, they're still in the dark.
At 10:40 p.m. Sunday (26 Nov 2006), in the midst of what's known locally as a "Yoho Blow", the entire community
of about 150 people, 27 km west of Lake Louise, was plunged into darkness. Power wasn't restored until 5:20 p.m. Monday
(26 Nov 2006).
"It wasn't fun," said local restaurant owner Sean Cunningham, who also sits on the Field Community Council.
"It was 19 hours of consternation while we were wondering what was going on. We didn't have heat because our gas furnace runs on
electricity, we had no hot water, no lights... our dishwasher froze, our toilet froze - a lot of people in town have pipes that froze.
"It was at the point where if the power hadn't come on when it did, we were going to pack up and head to Banff. It was getting to
the point where we were seriously concerned."
A Yoho Blow, he explained, is a fierce wind that sweeps through the Yoho Valley at speeds of up to 100 kmh. On Sunday and Monday, it
forced the wind chill in Field to well below minus 40 and created whiteout conditions with the fresh snow. It's also likely to blame
for the broken hydro poles and downed trees that caused the power outage in the first place.
Cunningham said he and his wife spent the day huddled around a small propane stove in the basement with their
four-year-old son, playing Crazy Eights by candlelight. The temperature in their house dropped to about nine degrees
Celsius and they could see their breath.
He used his knowledge as a chef to bypass the safety features on his gas stove and managed to heat some soup, but other than that the
family remained "hunkered down".
"My toes are just starting to warm up toasty today," he said Wednesday (29 Nov 2006).
Cunningham said no one in the community suffered anything beyond frozen pipes and extreme discomfort with the situation, but now
people want answers as to why it took so long to restore the power.
A spokesman with B.C. Hydro in Golden assured him throughout the event that the power would be restored "shortly", with a
first prediction for 8 a.m. Monday, then 4 p.m. An hour and a half after that latter assurance, the lights did come on.
Throughout the ordeal, however, residents could hear the CP trains moving through the valley, and many wondered whether the hydro
crews were taking a back seat to the railroad's schedule.
Diane Tammen, a community relations spokesperson with B.C. Hydro's East Kootenay region, said a line crew from Golden was called out
at midnight Sunday night and found the cause of the outages were several downed trees and broken cross-bars in two
locations along a 20 km stretch of track west of Field. Because the damage was along the railway's right-of-way, the
crews and equipment had to be taken in by a track vehicle.
"We worked in conjunction with CP Rail's schedule. If the crew had to stop work because a train came through, that's what they
did."
On Monday morning a fresh hydro crew had to be brought in from Invermere, and they worked all day to restore the power, she said.
CP Rail's chief public spokesperson Ed Greenberg said the railway has to meet strict operating requirements of Transport Canada, and
"it's not as easy as it seems just to bring all the trains to a halt."
However, "we did give it our highest priority. We did hold trains while the hydro crews were working, and when the crews were
changing out or warming up or changing locations, we took the opportunity to move trains through."
Cunningham, however, fears it was "a bit of a bureaucratic bungle on difficulties with getting the hydro crew onto the track to
clear the trees at the same time as the trains were running through."
He would like to see a formal discussion with CP, BC Hydro, and the Field Community Council to ensure it doesn't happen again.
"There needs to be discussion. I would assume that human beings are a little more important than freight, and I would assume CP
thinks so, too.
"But at this point we don't know what happened. We realize it's important that the trains run, but BC Hydro has to have access to
those lines in a timely fashion. There needs to be an ongoing dialogue about this with our community
council."
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