Heavy winds bring trees down, City of Kamloops advises residents to stay out of parks

Oct 17, 2017 | 11:26 AM

KAMLOOPS — Heavy winds caused chaos in Kamloops Tuesday as a storm system blew into the BC Interior.

Beginning at about 11:00 a.m., emergency crews began responding to multiple reports of trees down, including some over power lines.

An outage in Valleyview resulted in about 650 residents without power.

The trouble began on Monday for the Kamloops parks system, as the winds began to pick up.

City of Kamloops Senior Parks Supervisor Shawn Cook says branches came down in several areas.

“What we’ve seen from last night, areas like Riverside Park, the Schubert Avenue part of the Rivers Trail there have been some branches borken off, Mac Island,” said Cook. “Some areas all throughout our park system had some branches that fell down.”

The City is telling residents to stay out of the parks system until the winds subside.

“Right now, what we’re advising the residents is not to be in the parks or the trails where there are trees,” said Cook. “Especially this afternoon and tonight, there are supposed to be wind gusts up to 90 km/h, I believe.”

Cook says residents should also pay attention to the trees in their own yards.

“If the trees are healthy, everything’s good. You just never know, right? Make sure there are no dead, diseased or damaged trees on their property. But again, these are unexpected wind gusts. 90 km/h you don’t see that often in Kamloops, so it’s definitely an anomaly.”