On the morning of December 20, 2018, my wife Georgina and I headed out of Sayward to do some Christmas shopping in Campbell River. There was a wind warning out, but the wind was light, and we even saw a bit of sun on our way to Campbell River. We did our shopping and headed home. The wind picked up a bit around Roberts Lake, and we could see that a few trees had come down, and there were branches on the road. All in all, though, it was pretty calm out compared to what the weather channel had warned could be coming.
Then we turned onto Sayward Road around 5 pm, and there was a police roadblock stopping all cars from going any further. The parking lot at the Sayward junction was full of cars, and even the school bus loaded with kids was waiting. I talked to Kim Graham, who is the head of our RCMP attachment, and she informed me that multiple trees had been blown onto the road from the storm, taking power poles and hydro wires down with them. I asked her if she knew if the logging road into town was blocked, and she told me all town roads were blocked. BC Hydro crews were working to open the road, and we all had to just sit and wait it out.
As we waited, we could see people going in and out of the co-op gas station with popcorn and coffee; the co-op was giving this out for free. The Crossroads restaurant and pub were also providing coffee, and they were giving free pizza to the kids on the school bus as well. Gives one a good feeling to see our little community helping out like this. Much respect on my part for these businesses.
We had our fill of coffee and popcorn while we waited, and after about an hour, we decided to check out the logging road, there were many trees down but someone had cut a way through the worst and we could drive over the rest of them, it was slow going but we made it to the intersection of the logging road and Sayward Rd. We turned onto Sayward Rd, but only made it about 100 meters before we ran into a huge pile of trees on the road that were tangled up with wire power lines. We turned around and headed back onto the logging road to reach town. This road had been cut out as well, and we were able to reach home. When we got into the house, the kids told us that it was terrifying during the storm; they thought the roof would be torn off and that it sounded like a freight train was running through the house. It had felt like the windows would blow in. The power was out, but the wind had eased off quite a bit. The kids had the storm lanterns going, I set up our camping stove, cooked up a stir fry, and made some coffee. After we ate, we all headed off to bed early.
I got up just before daylight and headed off to get some photos. The damage that was done was incredible. Sayward Road looked like a right-of-way that had just been felled, and trees were piled up 3 to 4 meters high and in groups of up to 30 trees per pile. There were many trees on homes and outbuildings, but the damage to these properties was minimal considering the number of trees that had fallen. There were many poles, transformers and wires on the ground. After checking out all the damage, I realized that power would not be restored anytime soon. So off to town, we went to rent a generator so that we would not lose our food in the freezer and fridge. Power was not restored for 4 days.
The village of Sayward was on top of things during this time; they opened the community centre for longer hours. The centre had auxiliary power. Free showers and the use of the kitchen facilities were open to all who needed to wash or cook food. There were free snacks and coffee as well. This was the most damaging storm in BC Hydro’s history. It hit the whole island.