Vancouver Island outage cause undetermined

The cause of a power outage that left 200,000 people in the dark on Vancouver Island the night before had BC Hydro officials scratching their heads Monday.

BC Hydro spokesman Ted Olynyk said the outages in the southern part of the island were tied to a transmission problem but workers were still trying to determine the source of that problem, CTV reported on its Web site.

The blackout started about 5:40 p.m., just as many people were sitting down to Canada's Thanksgiving Day dinner. Power came on for most customers by 8 p.m.

The outage caused headaches for emergency workers who responded to burglar alarms going off and calls from people trapped in elevators, CanWest News Service reported.

It was mayhem, Victoria firefighter Patricia Core said. Every line was lit up and it was impossible to keep up. It was craziness. I've never seen it like that in here.

It wasn't chaos for everyone, though.

Thankfully we had just finished cooking a huge spread for Thanksgiving dinner when the power went out so we lit candles and had a family feast by candlelight, Matt Amedro said in a post to the Victoria Times-Colonist's Web site. It was nice.