One week after downed power lines in the Fraser River caused traffic gridlock and risked potential injury to motorists and rescue services, Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart met with BC Hydro executives who, he said, admitted "dropping the ball" that night.
Stewart sat down with BC Hydro VPs and representatives from Coquitlam RCMP, city staff and the fire department Monday for what he called a "post-mortem" discussion about the potentially catastrophic events of one week before.
"They dropped the ball on informing the communities that were affected of the risks associated with the erosion of the towers on this line," Stewart said, noting that BC Hydro had concerns about the larger 500kv towers connecting Surrey and Coquitlam across the Fraser River potentially collapsing almost two weeks before the adjacent, smaller 230kv tower collapsed into the river on the Surrey side, threatening to pull down towers in Coquitlam.
"It was clear that the 500kv line deserved some attention even though that's not the one that collapsed," Stewart said. "We could have done an even better job in response had we been able to put our mind to the worst case scenarios a week and a half before this happened."
BC Hydro did not return calls from The Tri-City News before deadline Thursday.
The second lesson that came out of the meeting between the city and the power authority was that lines of communication need to be opened up between the two immediately once a problem like this happens, Stewart said.
The Surrey tower collapsed into the river at around 9 p.m. while the river's current on the downed lines immediately started to pull on the nearest tower on the Coquitlam side, between Leeder Avenue and Burbidge Street, bending it towards the water.
Despite setting up a mobile command post with fire and rescue services and RCMP on the Coquitlam side to deal with the potential collapse of the hydro line system almost immediately after the accident, Mayor Stewart said it was morning before they could get the proper authorities from BC Hydro to come to Coquitlam and make the necessary decision to cut down the strained lines.
"Hydro set up their command centre where the damage was, which was on the south shore, and not where the enormous risk was, which was on the north shore. Hydro is very good at getting power restored but it can be recognized at this point that the bigger problem - the problem with wider spread consequences - was the risk of collapse of the towers on the north shore."
Stewart said that after "several hours of trying to get hydro's attention," during which the mayor, the RCMP and rescue services made the decision to close down Highway 1, Lougheed Highway and United Boulevard to protect the travelling public from falling towers and power lines, he was finally able to get David Lebeter, BC Hydro's senior VP of transmission and distribution to assess the damage.
"At that time, the decision was made at around 3 or 4 a.m. that the solution would be to cut the wires and drop all the cables across the river and the cables across the freeway."
That decision was carried out at 5 a.m., eight hours after the tower's collapse.
"We owe a duty when these things happen to examine them very closely for what lessons can be learned for when a much more significant disaster strikes us - and it will," Stewart said.
On Thursday, BC Hydro was burying the collapsed 20-storey, 200,000-lb tower under large rocks where it lay in the Fraser River, and will consider removing it at a later date.
tcoyne@tricitynews.com
