UPDATED: Power restored to thousands after outages hit Duncan, North Cowichan

More than 4,000 BC Hydro customers were without power in Duncan and parts of North Cowichan Wednesday afternoon (Oct. 29). The smaller outage, affecting about 1,153 customers, was reported at 1:25 p.m. in the area west of Boys Road, east of Indian Road, south of Pine Avenue and north of S’eshia Road. Crews are on site and the cause remains under investigation. A second, larger outage, affecting about 3,000 customers north of Trunk Road and east of Government Street was reported shortly after noon. BC Hydro says a tree came down across power lines in that area. The outages knocked out power to much of downtown Duncan and the Tzouhalem Road area. A third big outage was added to the list after 3 p.m., this one affecting 848 customers west of Lakes Road, north of Coronation Avenue, east of Jubilee Street and south of York Road. At least one of the outages was caused by a tree very close or leaning on a double circuit, said B.C. Hydro spokesperson Ted Olynyk. He said it is likely that recent storm events caused the tree to fail, compounded with the large amount of recent rainfall. Two crews worked on the outages, Olynyk said, and power was restored by 6 p.m.