A crew of 77 Coquitlam electrical technicians, mechanics and safety workers, along with all their gear, is on the way to the northern California city of Vallejo to restore power to areas charred by wildfires.
Crews from the Coquitlam-based company Rokstad Power set out Tuesday morning, a day after company owner and CEO Aaron Rokstad says his company was contacted by officials in California asking for help.
Forecasters in the United States say California faces an "extremely critical risk" of further wildfires as winds whip up blazes that have destroyed more than 200 homes and buildings north of Vallejo, a city less than 50 km north of San Francisco
California power provider PG&E has been shutting off electricity for millions of customers in order to reduce the risk of fires sparked by downed wires.
Rokstad says his company was called because it has done contract work for U.S. utilities after other disasters such as hurricanes.
“We’ve responded to Hurricane Sandy on the eastern seaboard, and pretty much every other major storm, too,” he said. “It’s part of our normal service contract to respond during events like this. But they’ve never asked us to bring in our Canadian resources.”
When Rokstad's rapid deployment crew hit the border with a 75-engine convoy mounted with buckets and cranes Tuesday, “there was a bit of a snarl,” he said of the six-hour wait.
By Wednesday afternoon, the crews started pulling into Sonoma County, the noted wine region, and after checking in with the local utility, it will get its marching orders and head out to the damaged areas to get to work rebuilding fire-damaged power lines in what could be round-the-clock shifts of dangerous work, said Rokstad.
"Once the areas are deemed safe and the fires are out, we will come in behind and start rebuilding the — I guess for lack of a better word — the burnt-down infrastructure, overhead power lines, towers, poles... so they can get these people's power back on."
Rokstad says he expects power for some northern California residents could be out for weeks but that the workers' absence will have minimal impact on the company's Canadian operations. About a third of Rokstad Power’s work occurs in western Canada, where it is contracted to support BC Hydro. The other two thirds of its workforce operates in the U.S.
PG&E said the power that was shut down Tuesday would affect about 1.5 million people in some 30 counties, including the Sierra foothills, wine country and the San Francisco Bay Area, the Associated Press reported.
As many as 200,000 people have been displaced in northern California and about one million people across the state are still without power from a blackout over the weekend.
No deaths have been reported from the fires but toppled trees have claimed three lives.
With files from The Associated Press.
