Zeballos orders 22 properties evacuated as another storm approaches B.C.

The Village declared a local state of emergency on Friday, November 6. By 8 a.m. Saturday, about 40,000 electricity customers across British Columbia were still without power, and BC Ferries was cancelling more sailings ahead of another round of strong winds. Repair crews faced a difficult task: reconnecting customers while new failures continued to develop.⁠12⁠17⁠19

Zeballos has approximately 125 residents, but that is not an evacuation count. Neither is the number of properties. The order affected part of the village, not the entire community, and officials had not established how many people left.⁠1⁠5

Ehattesaht Nation Chief Simon John described a river that had risen sharply and was full after the heavy rain. The danger came from swollen waterways and unstable slopes together; an evacuation for potential landslides does not establish that every threatened slope has failed.⁠1⁠12

The November 6 emergency notice identified properties at 101–118 Maquinna Avenue and 202–216 Pandora Crescent for evacuation. People under an order were required to leave. Emergency support registration was directed to the Zeballos Fire Hall at 155 Maquinna Avenue.⁠12

A separate alert covered 402, 404 and 406 Ferris Road. It required residents and visitors to prepare for departure in under 30 minutes if ordered and was issued until further notice. An alert is not an instruction to leave immediately, but neither is it an assurance that staying will remain safe.⁠13⁠16

The same November 6 notice encouraged other residents around Pandora, Gold Valley and Reno Roads to shelter at home unless directed otherwise. It also closed Maquinna Avenue between numbers 101 and 118. Those were the restrictions in that dated notice—not confirmation that every road restriction or evacuation boundary has remained unchanged. The Village and Strathcona Regional District activated their emergency operations centres.⁠12

No dated evacuation all-clear is established in the reporting available here. That leaves the most important local question unresolved: when officials will judge the threatened properties safe enough for households to return.

The provincial outage figures trace different moments in the storm, not competing versions of one total. CBC’s Friday-evening report put the number without power at at least 30,000 at its last check. Subsequent accounts put Friday’s peak at about 80,000, with roughly 40,000 still disconnected at 8 a.m. Saturday.⁠1⁠17⁠19

CHEK’s Saturday headline used 80,000, but its article body gave approximately 40,000 for the morning remainder, consistent with CBC’s Saturday report. The larger figure describes the Friday peak; it should not be presented as the Saturday-morning count.⁠17⁠19

Vancouver Island alone had more than 30,000 customers without electricity at Friday’s peak. Across the central Interior and North, approximately 23,000 customers lost power in 100 Mile House, Williams Lake, Quesnel and Vanderhoof, while about one-third of Prince George was without power at one point. Those regional snapshots should not be added together as though they were simultaneous, separate totals.⁠19⁠21

Crews were targeting hard-hit areas including Port Hardy, Courtenay, Qualicum and Prince George, repairing damaged lines, poles and other equipment. BC Hydro expected restoration work to continue through Saturday and was monitoring two, potentially three, additional weather systems through midweek. Contractors and other resources were being prepared for an extended response.⁠21

BC Hydro says prolonged drought and heat can weaken trees and roots, making them more vulnerable when wind and rain arrive. That explains one source of risk; it does not prove drought caused every damaged line. The utility described spending $150 million over the past several years identifying and removing dangerous trees and vegetation near its equipment.⁠21

Its immediate safety advice is more concrete: stay at least 10 metres from downed, damaged or low-hanging power lines and report them to emergency services. A nearby outage does not make a fallen wire safe. BC Hydro also recommends a stocked 72-hour emergency kit, including water, non-perishable food, flashlights, batteries and first-aid supplies.⁠21

BC Ferries cancelled Saturday’s 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Pacific-time sailings in both directions between Tsawwassen and Swartz Bay because of forecast high winds and waves. Smaller routes also lost sailings, and more departures remained at risk. Friday’s disruption was therefore not simply a backlog being cleared; another interruption was already scheduled.⁠19

“Our crews and operations teams are closely monitoring conditions, and while we always aim to keep people moving, the safety of our passengers and crew must come first,” BC Ferries spokesperson Lilian Kim said.⁠19

Saturday’s warnings were geographically specific. Northern Vancouver Island faced forecast gusts up to 110 kilometres an hour, easing by late afternoon but remaining gusty overnight. Much of the South Coast faced southeasterly winds of 70 kilometres an hour, gusting to 90, with winds forecast to die down towards midnight. Warnings covered most of Vancouver Island, including Victoria, as well as Metro Vancouver, the Southern Gulf Islands, Sunshine Coast and Fraser Canyon. These were forecasts, not measured maximum winds.⁠17⁠19

The rainfall figures also need their time windows attached. The initial Friday-evening report described up to 175 millimetres in some areas over the preceding 24 hours and forecast about 250 millimetres, or locally more, in parts of Vancouver Island by the weekend’s end—including rain already received. Saturday’s report put accumulation in parts of the Island at up to 210 millimetres since Thursday. A longer window can produce a larger total without contradicting the earlier measurement.⁠1⁠19

A separate outlook allowed 400 millimetres or more in parts of Vancouver Island across the current and incoming systems over the following week. That was a forecast over a longer horizon, not an observed total or another 400 millimetres guaranteed to fall.⁠6

High-streamflow advisories covered most of Vancouver Island, the South and Central coasts, Sea-to-Sky and the lower Fraser River basin. Northern and western Island waterways were rising rapidly. Along much of the Island’s west coast, elevated ocean levels, waves and high tides also made minor flooding of low-lying shorelines likely—a separate hazard from the river and slope risks behind Zeballos’s evacuation.⁠19

Nor was the threat confined to the coast’s overnight winds. An Interior weather statement stretched from Hope north to Burns Lake, with gusts of 60–80 kilometres an hour expected to strengthen Saturday afternoon and peak Sunday morning. Another cold front was expected to bring stronger winds Sunday afternoon. There was still no confirmed final restoration count or dated evacuation all-clear: the next meaningful test was whether homes, repairs and transport links could withstand the next round.⁠19