Gusting winds are being blamed for bringing down a tree that landed on top of a car this morning near Finlayson Arm Rd. in the Goldstream area, forcing the closure of the southbound and northbound lanes for severasl hours this morning. One person suffered minor injuries asnd was treated in hospital. An arborist was brought in to check on the condition of other trees in the area. The northbound lane reopened about 11:30 with thge southbound lanes re-opening about noon. However, the build up of traffic was significant and is taking time to clear.
The wind is also keeping BC Hydro crews busy with trees falling on power lines and knocking out electricity to thousands of customers. It will be this evening before many of BC Hydro's power customers are back online. Central Saanich, Highlands, Colwood, Langford, Saanich, View Royal and Victoria are all affected.
BC Hydro's Ted Olynyk says we can blame mother nature for the outages with branches and trees down on the lines. While the goal is to have evberyone back on line this evening, he cautions it's difficult to say until crews can assess the damage in some areas.
Hydro crews have been brought in from Salt Spring Island to help with repairs.
Olynyk says crews have been kept busy throughout the morning and it will be evening before everthing is back online or many customers.