PRINCE GEORGE

Editorial by Shane Chevalier

Saturday, March 29, 2025. Last updated on March 31, 2025 at 6:26 am

UPDATE: Power has been restored to all affected planned areas. A total of just over 15,000 were affected by the planned outage.

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Two planned power outages for a portion of Prince George has made local news narratives like the world is going to end…

On Sunday evening/overnight (Mar 30) from 7pm-5am, two planned power outages affecting nearly 15,000 residents will take place in Prince George and surrounding communities. BC Hydro states the outages are for equipment service and pole replacements. What’s the big deal here?..

Earlier this week, social media lit up (City of PG’s FB Page) with frustrated residents about an upcoming planned power outage. Afterwards, a news story broke out with a headline titled “Upcoming Huge Power Outage has seniors concerned” that was broadcast on some local radio stations, online and television… another online outlet chimed in to make it sound like Prince George is going to plunge into an abyss of hell for 8 hours. Far from it, folks. (Readers can copy and paste that headline title into Google to see who wrote it)

Anyone remember September 11, 2019, when a transmission circuit failure occurred and knocked out power to all of Prince George, west to Terrace, and up to the BC Peace Region? That Wednesday night just after 9 pm, the entire city went dark along with many other communities fed by the transmission line.

Boom. No power. Nothing…

The outage knocked out power to 110,000 people at the height of the event for several hours. Many residents had their power back on within 40 minutes while others did not get their power back on until 3am, according to an archived news story published by PJXM at that time. What did the senior population do 6 years ago? Majority survived it, in fact the news media did not report any deaths because of it (shocker).. smartphones worked and had 4G internet access while land based internet was out.

Forward to today and clearly the timing (end of spring break) and not being notified are the two main reasons why Prince George residents are upset by the upcoming outages this Sunday. The third would be the weather.. but come on folks, planned outages are going to happen and it goes to show just how reliant we are on electricity 100 percent of the time. It also tells the story of how unprepared residents are if seniors are concerned about planned outages but not so much when the power goes off for unplanned reasons.

That’s terrifying to think about but everybody should be prepared to have no power for 72 hours… sadly, many are not if the news media had to tell the community that seniors are concerned about an 8 hour power outage. The news media didn’t have to tell that story at all. The reporter simply chose a vulnerable senior population and created a negative to feed off of.

Moving on.

BC Hydro states on their website that it will inform customers of planned outages by mail, auto dialer, and on the MyHydro Account for customers who have signed up to view their usage and billing online. Hydro also asks customers to keep their phone number information up to date to receive notification by phone. Planned outages are also made public on the BC Hydro website 2 weeks prior to the event, but understandable people are not constantly thinking about electricity until something happens with it.

None of us are happy when the power goes out and there is no way out of the planned outages so let the evening/overnight servicing commence!

Three tips to suggest! Do NOT ever open your fridge/freezers. Plan accordingly before 7pm! Use a cooler with ice packs for any items you would need for the evening. Night time temps will be near normal (chilly) so outside is also an option for the cooler.

Last July, a similar planned outage occurred in Prince George and my fridge contents, which was a full fridge, made it just fine for the 7 hour duration. Deep freezer was fine as well. Once you open the door to the fridge, cold air gets sucked right out and warm air will be trapped.

NOTE – I took into consideration that seniors rely on electricity for medical devices and heat, but I also took into consideration about unplanned power outages and the unknown time risk those would be to seniors. Unplanned outages occur far more often than planned outages. I also took into consideration the timing of the event due to spring break ending for students and parents. Honestly, there is NO good time for a planned outage and that is why they occur during the least interruptive time of day.

Written by: Shane Chevalier