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Editor's note: More information added as well as quotes from Interfor officials.
A power outage that took place in Grand Forks was caused by something that happened at Interfor, says Hal Wright, the City of Grand Forks’ manager of operations.
“Late (the night of March 6), Interfor had some sort of overcurrent event that shut down not only power to their plant but also to much of Grand Fork’s east side, including Riverside Drive and downtown,” Wright said.
Customers in the Ruckle area that purchase electricity from the City of Grand Forks were also affected said Wright, as well as Valley Heights and properties north of Central Avenue to 12th Street from downtown.
“I understand power in some areas was out for as long as two hours. Everyone had power back up after that. FortisBC is responsible for power to Interfor and to the City of Grand Forks, and as such, was contacted to repair the power outage. Our crews responded (that) night but quickly determined it was a main feed line into our substation requiring action on the part of FortisBC,” he said.
FortisBC confirmed that it was due to an electrical malfunction and said power was restored to its system by 12:15 a.m. on March 7.
Andrew Horahan, Interfor’s GM of Kootenay operations, said that he didn’t know enough about the situation to properly comment yet.
“We know we lost power to part of our facility from (March 6) at 10ish ‘til Thursday at 10ish but we don’t understand fully (what happened) yet,” he said.