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The tents at Richmond Night Market took a real beating.
photo by Raymond Cheung
Wind wreaks havoc in Richmond
Wind featuring gusts of up to 80 kilometres
per hour wreaked havoc in Richmond overnight Tuesday, leaving some 8,000 homes
and businesses without power for anywhere from just a few minutes to several
hours.
Toppled trees did the most damage, with the
City of Richmond called out to 35 locations, and city spokesperson Ted Townsend
explaining that six trees fell on vehicles and another on a house.
“At one time, No. 3, No. 2, Gilbert, No. 5
and River roads were completely blocked to traffic because of trees down,” he
said.
Trees down across power lines were cited by
BC Hydro as the cause of the majority of the outages, including one area bound
by No. 3 Road and No. 7 Road, south of Bridgeport Road and north of Steveston
Highway that affected 3,254 customers from 9:47 p.m. Tuesday to 2:34 a.m.
Wednesday.
Downed trees were also to blame for an outage
that left 715 customers without power south-west of Bridgeport Road and east of
Viking Way between 10:51 p.m. Tuesday and 5:03 a.m. Wednesday, and a further
378 customers in an area south of River Road and east of Vulcan Way between
9:15 p.m. and 11:25 p.m. Tuesday.
Customers in an area west of Ash Street and
east of Magnolia Drive was also without power due to a cause listed on BC
Hydro’s website as “other” but only for a couple of minutes just before 10 p.m.
Tuesday. Other causes were also responsible for an extended outage west of
Highway 99 and south of Seahurst Road between 9:50 p.m. Tuesday and 5:06 a.m. Wednesday.
Less than five customers in the 7600 block of
Blundell Rd. were also without power from just after 9 p.m. Tuesday, with power
restored just before 4 a.m. Wednesday.
Tents and booths at the Richmond Night Market
were also battered by the storm, leaving founder Raymond Cheung scrambling to
organize clean-up efforts Wednesday morning.
“There’s lots of damage. It’s one of the
worst wind storms we’ve seen since we opened the market,” reported Cheung, as
he walked around the site which is located near the River Rock Casino and close
to the Fraser River and Vancouver International Airport.
“In the past two or three years I’ve noticed
more windy days, so we’ve been (adding) quite a bit more anchoring just in
case. But even though we did that again this year, it was no match to Mother
Nature.”
Cheung said he doesn’t know how much it will
cost to repair the damage, but said he has “no choice” but to forge ahead.
“We have to be ready for Friday (when the night market is scheduled to re-open),” he said.
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