On January 1, the Queen of Capilano departed on schedule from Snug Cove at 12:45pm. Passenger Phil Kemp was aboard and describes a “pretty wild sea, a pretty exciting crossing,” and several failed attempts to dock the ferry into Berth #1 at Horseshoe Bay before pulling out, and successfully docking in Berth 2. The ferry would make one more crossing to Bowen Island, and then cancel all sailings until 10pm.
Deborah Marshall, the Executive Director of Public Affairs with BC Ferries says that she does not recall a cancellation of ferry sailing due to high winds in her 25 years on the job. In the events on New Years Day, however, there was more at play tham simply severe weather.
“The boat was operating with three right-angle drives in the engine as opposed to four,” says Marshall. “Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but with such high winds docking the ferry became problematic.”
The ferry captains noted winds between 45 and 50 knots at Pam Rocks at 7pm.
Kemp and his family found out that the sailings were cancelled, but returned to Horseshoe Bay just to check it out.
“We sat there in Sewell’s parking lot with the headlights on watching the dock heave and all of the boats healed over,” says Kemp. “There was no power on in Horseshoe Bay, you couldn’t even get a warm cup of coffee.”
The motel in Horseshoe Bay was full, so Kemp got a hotel in the city.
Shari Ulrich was also forced to spend the night in the city. However, as the operator of a guest suite, says she started receiving messages from people stuck on Bowen looking for a place to stay.
“My place was booked, but I immediately started calling around and trying to find alternate accommodations for these various people,” says Ulrich. “It really struck me that there are going to be times when people are stranded here, and without much in the way of accommodations on Bowen, we should really have some kind of plan or protocol when it happens.”
Meanwhile, huge chunks of Bowen Island were in the dark.
Mora Scott from BC Hydro says the power restoration centre started receiving calls from Bowen on New Years Eve due to a build up of snow and ice on the power lines. They sent out a crew that returned to the mainland that night.
The next day, the crews had to pause their work due to dangerous conditions caused by an increase in wind, they were then unable to come to Bowen later in the day because of ferry cancellations.
As 10pm approached on New Years Day, winds dropped somewhat allowing for the ferry to make a trip back to Horseshoe Bay. Shari Ulrich says the family she had arranged accommodations for headed home, Sarah Haxby canceled plans to open up Collins Hall as a shelter.
BC Hydro restoration crews and one vegetation crew came on the first trip to Bowen on the morning of January 2, and a total of 12 crews came to Bowen that day.
“There were a lot of small outages, things that could be fixed by simply removing a branch, but crews had to go to each site and that takes a lot of time,” says Scott. “There were also some really challenging conditions on Bowen because there were places that the bucket truck couldn’t reach. Members of our crew had to hike in and climb the poles in some cases.”
A total of 1,500 customers lost power on Bowen at the peak of the outage, and some had to wait until the evening of January 2nd to have power restored.
Looking back on this New Year’s Day storm, Islander Bill Pocklington says that while this is the worst storm he’s seen hit Bowen Island in 20 years, but it was not nearly as bad as the one that hit the winter of 1991.
“The power was out for three weeks,” recalls Pocklington. “On the ferry ride home when the storm hit, the captain told us to lie on the floor and hold on to the seat legs while he made a straight shot for Snug Cove.”
