Why the Grid Can Be Fixed While Your House Stays Dark, and What to Do Next
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Prince George, B.C. — After a week of back-to-back windstorms that began on the night of Friday, Nov. 6, B.C. Hydro has a message for customers who are still waiting: the line crew may not be the last call you need to make. As restoration moves from main lines to individual streets and driveways, crews are finding homes where the storm tore up the equipment bolted to the house itself. That equipment belongs to the homeowner, and the utility will not energize it until a licensed electrician has repaired it.
Most owners assume everything between the pole and the panel is the utility's problem. It isn't. The service mast, the meter base and the hardware that holds the overhead line to your wall are yours to maintain and yours to fix. When a tree or a gust takes them down, the grid can be fully restored while your house stays dark, and the delay is measured in electrician availability, not crew schedules.
This article explains where the ownership line sits, why B.C. Hydro holds reconnection until the repair is done, the order of steps that gets you back on fastest, what the repair is likely to cost and whether insurance responds. It closes with a short look at backup power, including the electric pickups some rural residents used to bridge the outage.
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The scale of this event explains why the issue surfaced now. In its Nov. 11 update, B.C. Hydro said the series of storms had affected approximately 490,000 customers across the province since Nov. 6. The utility described damage on a scale it had not seen in the region in many years: broken poles, hundreds of spans of downed wire and fallen trees blocking access to damaged equipment. More than 180 workers, including crews from the North Interior, South Interior and Lower Mainland, were working in and around Prince George.
By that point, most main lines around the city were back. The work had shifted to small pockets of customers and to the hardest individual repairs. That is the stage at which a second problem shows up. Crews arrive at a property, find the overhead service pulled away from the wall or the meter base hanging loose, and cannot reconnect.
The rural picture was harder still. Over the first weekend, CBC News reported about 200 spans of downed wire east and north of Prince George, with some customers there not expected back until late Tuesday at the earliest. For those households, a damaged meter base adds a second wait on top of an outage that had already run for days.
B.C. Hydro was direct about the frustration. In its update, the utility acknowledged how hard this is for customers who have already been without power for a long time, then stated the rule plainly: this equipment belongs to the homeowner, so a licensed electrician must repair it before B.C. Hydro can safely reconnect.
The scale of this event explains why the issue surfaced now. In its Nov. 11 update, B.C. Hydro said the series of storms had affected approximately 490,000 customers across the province since Nov. 6. The utility described damage on a scale it had not seen in the region in many years: broken poles, hundreds of spans of downed wire and fallen trees blocking access to damaged equipment. More than 180 workers, including crews from the North Interior, South Interior and Lower Mainland, were working in and around Prince George.
By that point, most main lines around the city were back. The work had shifted to small pockets of customers and to the hardest individual repairs. That is the stage at which a second problem shows up. Crews arrive at a property, find the overhead service pulled away from the wall or the meter base hanging loose, and cannot reconnect.
The rural picture was harder still. Over the first weekend, CBC News reported about 200 spans of downed wire east and north of Prince George, with some customers there not expected back until late Tuesday at the earliest. For those households, a damaged meter base adds a second wait on top of an outage that had already run for days.
B.C. Hydro was direct about the frustration. In its update, the utility acknowledged how hard this is for customers who have already been without power for a long time, then stated the rule plainly: this equipment belongs to the homeowner, so a licensed electrician must repair it before B.C. Hydro can safely reconnect.
The ownership boundary is written into B.C. Hydro's customer terms. Its customer-service rules list what the property owner must provide and maintain, and what the utility owns. The split is more specific than most people expect.
| Power poles (B.C. Hydro's) | The utility poles on the street or right of way | B.C. Hydro |
| Overhead wires and cables | The service drop running from the pole to your house | B.C. Hydro |
| Electricity meter | The device that measures your use, plugged into the meter base | B.C. Hydro |
| Through-bolted clevis with insulator | The bracket on your wall or mast that the overhead line is tied to | Homeowner |
| Weatherhead (gooseneck) | The curved cap at the top of the mast where wires enter, shaped to shed rain | Homeowner |
| Service mast (conduit or "house pipe") | The rigid pipe running up the outside wall or through the roof, carrying the wires down to the meter | Homeowner |
| Meter base (meter socket) | The metal enclosure on the wall that the meter plugs into | Homeowner |
| All wiring inside the property | Everything from the meter base to your panel and every circuit beyond it | Homeowner |
The same page sets out the general principle behind the list. The owner is responsible for proper wiring and fittings that meet the electrical code and municipal bylaws so the utility can provide service. It also states that connections and disconnections from the B.C. Hydro system must only be made by the utility's crews and contractors.
The meter and the meter base are different things with different owners. The meter is B.C. Hydro's. The box it plugs into, the meter base or meter socket, is yours. A smashed meter on an intact base is a utility repair; a torn-off base is an electrician's job.
That distinction is the single most useful thing to understand about this outage. When a tree limb drags the service drop down, the force goes into the clevis, the mast and the meter base. Those are the parts most likely to bend, crack or pull out of the wall, and every one of them sits on the homeowner's side of the line.
A line crew's job ends at its own equipment. Putting power back into a bent mast or a cracked meter base would mean energizing a service nobody qualified has checked: possible water in the enclosure, conductors damaged where they were wrenched through a bend, a grounding path broken when the mast tore loose. B.C. Hydro's position is that it cannot do that safely, and the province's safety regulator draws the same line.
Technical Safety BC's natural-disaster protocol separates two situations. If the utility disconnected service only as a precaution, it may reconnect without any contractor involvement. That shortcut does not apply where customer-owned infrastructure has been damaged as well. Then the owner has to bring in a licensed contractor to assess and repair the hazard.
The same bulletin explains how the paperwork is meant to work in an emergency. Permits are still required for the repair, but under the protocol a contractor does not need to obtain one before restoration work begins and may start emergency repairs first. A field safety representative, the certified person at a licensed electrical contractor who signs off on the work, can make a declaration to B.C. Hydro so the home can be reconnected, with formal paperwork filed with the regulator afterward.
Two limits matter for owners. First, the bulletin states that homeowner permits will not be issued for emergency repair work, so this is not a job you can permit and do yourself. Technical Safety BC's general rules also exclude strata owners, duplex owners and people running a business from home from homeowner electrical permits altogether. Second, the protocol was written with fire, flood, earthquake and landslide in mind, and some municipalities run their own permitting. Ask your contractor how the permit and declaration will be handled for your address rather than assuming.
The practical consequence is simple. Once the street is live, the speed of your reconnection depends on how quickly a licensed electrician can reach you, complete the repair and tell B.C. Hydro it is safe.
A line crew's job ends at its own equipment. Putting power back into a bent mast or a cracked meter base would mean energizing a service nobody qualified has checked: possible water in the enclosure, conductors damaged where they were wrenched through a bend, a grounding path broken when the mast tore loose. B.C. Hydro's position is that it cannot do that safely, and the province's safety regulator draws the same line.
Technical Safety BC's natural-disaster protocol separates two situations. If the utility disconnected service only as a precaution, it may reconnect without any contractor involvement. That shortcut does not apply where customer-owned infrastructure has been damaged as well. Then the owner has to bring in a licensed contractor to assess and repair the hazard.
The same bulletin explains how the paperwork is meant to work in an emergency. Permits are still required for the repair, but under the protocol a contractor does not need to obtain one before restoration work begins and may start emergency repairs first. A field safety representative, the certified person at a licensed electrical contractor who signs off on the work, can make a declaration to B.C. Hydro so the home can be reconnected, with formal paperwork filed with the regulator afterward.
Two limits matter for owners. First, the bulletin states that homeowner permits will not be issued for emergency repair work, so this is not a job you can permit and do yourself. Technical Safety BC's general rules also exclude strata owners, duplex owners and people running a business from home from homeowner electrical permits altogether. Second, the protocol was written with fire, flood, earthquake and landslide in mind, and some municipalities run their own permitting. Ask your contractor how the permit and declaration will be handled for your address rather than assuming.
The practical consequence is simple. Once the street is live, the speed of your reconnection depends on how quickly a licensed electrician can reach you, complete the repair and tell B.C. Hydro it is safe.
Start with what you can see from the ground and a safe distance. Look for a mast that is bent or leaning, a weatherhead pulled away from the roof, a meter base hanging off the wall or sitting at an angle, or an overhead line that is sagging, touching the ground or tangled in a tree. Do not touch any of it, and do not try to straighten or re-secure anything yourself.
That caution holds even if the house seems dead. Ontario's Electrical Safety Authority advises owners to visually assess but not touch, because power may only be partially interrupted and shock hazards can be present even when lights and appliances appear off. B.C. Hydro's own rule for downed lines during these storms was to assume they are live, stay at least 10 metres back, roughly the length of a city bus, and call 911. The utility also reported people trying to move downed lines and driving over them.
For a faster check before the next windstorm, our 20-minute exterior check for hail and windstorm readiness covers the roofline and wall-mounted equipment worth looking at from the ground.
Once you have spotted damage, the order of operations matters.
| 1. Report the damage | Homeowner | Call 1-800-BCHYDRO (1-800-224-9376) and describe what you can see. Call 911 if a line is down. |
| 2. Disconnect | B.C. Hydro | Crews disconnect the home from the system so the repair can be done safely. |
| 3. Hire a licensed contractor | Homeowner | Verify the contractor's electrical licence before work starts. |
| 4. Repair | Licensed electrician | Replaces or re-secures the mast, weatherhead, clevis or meter base as needed. |
| 5. Notify the utility | Electrician | Tells B.C. Hydro the service is safe to reconnect. |
| 6. Reconnect | B.C. Hydro | Crews restore power; the utility says it will prioritize these customers. |
Start with what you can see from the ground and a safe distance. Look for a mast that is bent or leaning, a weatherhead pulled away from the roof, a meter base hanging off the wall or sitting at an angle, or an overhead line that is sagging, touching the ground or tangled in a tree. Do not touch any of it, and do not try to straighten or re-secure anything yourself.
That caution holds even if the house seems dead. Ontario's Electrical Safety Authority advises owners to visually assess but not touch, because power may only be partially interrupted and shock hazards can be present even when lights and appliances appear off. B.C. Hydro's own rule for downed lines during these storms was to assume they are live, stay at least 10 metres back, roughly the length of a city bus, and call 911. The utility also reported people trying to move downed lines and driving over them.
For a faster check before the next windstorm, our 20-minute exterior check for hail and windstorm readiness covers the roofline and wall-mounted equipment worth looking at from the ground.
Once you have spotted damage, the order of operations matters.
| 1. Report the damage | Homeowner | Call 1-800-BCHYDRO (1-800-224-9376) and describe what you can see. Call 911 if a line is down. |
| 2. Disconnect | B.C. Hydro | Crews disconnect the home from the system so the repair can be done safely. |
| 3. Hire a licensed contractor | Homeowner | Verify the contractor's electrical licence before work starts. |
| 4. Repair | Licensed electrician | Replaces or re-secures the mast, weatherhead, clevis or meter base as needed. |
| 5. Notify the utility | Electrician | Tells B.C. Hydro the service is safe to reconnect. |
| 6. Reconnect | B.C. Hydro | Crews restore power; the utility says it will prioritize these customers. |
Call B.C. Hydro before the electrician arrives, not after. The utility says crews disconnect the damaged service first so the repair can be done safely, and only B.C. Hydro may connect or disconnect its lines. Starting with that call keeps your place in the reconnection queue.
Keep a record as you go. Photograph the damage from where you are standing, note the time you called B.C. Hydro, and ask the electrician for an itemized invoice and a copy of any permit or declaration. Those documents are what an insurer will want to see.
No current Canadian source publishes a dependable price for replacing a storm-damaged mast or meter base, and the range of possible jobs is wide. A meter base that only needs re-securing is a short visit. A mast torn through the roof, with a new weatherhead, new conductors and roof flashing to rebuild, is a much larger one. Figures that circulate online are mostly American and do not reflect B.C. labour, permits or taxes.
What can be anchored is labour. Published rate cards from Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley contractors give a sense of the starting point. One Fraser Valley contractor bills $250 for the first hour, including the call-out, then $110 an hour after that.
A Greater Vancouver firm's published card lists a $200 first hour during business hours and $275 after hours, excluding tax and materials. These are single-company samples, not storm quotes, and rural or emergency rates in the North may differ. Materials, permit costs and GST sit on top.
When you get a quote, ask for it broken into parts: labour hours, the mast and fittings, the meter base, conductors, any roof or siding repair, and the permit. That lets you compare contractors and gives an adjuster something to work with.
B.C. Hydro's published standard charges include a minimum reconnection charge of $29.20 and a service connection call-back charge of $368. Those charges are listed for situations such as non-payment disconnections, and the utility's storm update says nothing about billing storm-affected customers for reconnection. Confirm with B.C. Hydro rather than assuming either way.
On coverage, the most direct Canadian statement comes through the regulator in Ontario. The Electrical Safety Authority, citing the Insurance Bureau of Canada, says most home insurance policies cover the cost to repair a home's electrical mast, provided a licensed electrical contractor does the work and you pay your deductible.
The cause in this event points the same way. The Insurance Bureau of Canada's guidance on fallen trees says home policies usually cover damage caused by wind or lightning, the most common reasons trees fall, and that it generally does not matter whose tree it was. Your own insurer handles the repair either way.
Two caveats apply. Your deductible may be close to, or larger than, a modest repair bill, so it is worth asking the electrician for an estimate before deciding whether to claim. And policies differ: read your wording or call your insurer or broker before you assume the repair is covered. If you have already been through one claim this year, our coverage of the steps homeowners take before the adjuster arrives applies here as well.
No current Canadian source publishes a dependable price for replacing a storm-damaged mast or meter base, and the range of possible jobs is wide. A meter base that only needs re-securing is a short visit. A mast torn through the roof, with a new weatherhead, new conductors and roof flashing to rebuild, is a much larger one. Figures that circulate online are mostly American and do not reflect B.C. labour, permits or taxes.
What can be anchored is labour. Published rate cards from Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley contractors give a sense of the starting point. One Fraser Valley contractor bills $250 for the first hour, including the call-out, then $110 an hour after that.
A Greater Vancouver firm's published card lists a $200 first hour during business hours and $275 after hours, excluding tax and materials. These are single-company samples, not storm quotes, and rural or emergency rates in the North may differ. Materials, permit costs and GST sit on top.
When you get a quote, ask for it broken into parts: labour hours, the mast and fittings, the meter base, conductors, any roof or siding repair, and the permit. That lets you compare contractors and gives an adjuster something to work with.
B.C. Hydro's published standard charges include a minimum reconnection charge of $29.20 and a service connection call-back charge of $368. Those charges are listed for situations such as non-payment disconnections, and the utility's storm update says nothing about billing storm-affected customers for reconnection. Confirm with B.C. Hydro rather than assuming either way.
On coverage, the most direct Canadian statement comes through the regulator in Ontario. The Electrical Safety Authority, citing the Insurance Bureau of Canada, says most home insurance policies cover the cost to repair a home's electrical mast, provided a licensed electrical contractor does the work and you pay your deductible.
The cause in this event points the same way. The Insurance Bureau of Canada's guidance on fallen trees says home policies usually cover damage caused by wind or lightning, the most common reasons trees fall, and that it generally does not matter whose tree it was. Your own insurer handles the repair either way.
Two caveats apply. Your deductible may be close to, or larger than, a modest repair bill, so it is worth asking the electrician for an estimate before deciding whether to claim. And policies differ: read your wording or call your insurer or broker before you assume the repair is covered. If you have already been through one claim this year, our coverage of the steps homeowners take before the adjuster arrives applies here as well.
After a regional storm, every licensed electrician in the area is fielding the same calls at once. There is no way to guarantee a contractor will be free when you need one, but you can shorten the search.
Pick a contractor now, while you have time to check them. Technical Safety BC's Find a Licensed Contractor tool shows a firm's licence number, status and type, any enforcement actions and its record of non-compliances, searchable by city and company name. Storm periods attract unlicensed operators, and the regulator warns that illegal work can lead to fines and higher insurance premiums.
Save the number in your phone alongside 1-800-BCHYDRO. If your mast is old, leaning or has a tree overhead, ask that contractor to look at it before winter rather than after it fails. A rural property with a long overhead run and mature trees near the line carries more of this risk than a newer suburban home with underground service.
Finally, keep a 72-hour emergency kit stocked. B.C. Hydro repeated that advice throughout this event, and it matters more if a damaged meter base adds days to the outage.
Some households north of Prince George bridged the outage with electric pickups. CBC News spoke with Bobbi Carpino, who runs the Salmon Valley campground and powered a deep freeze, a fridge, lights and an espresso machine from a Ford F-150 Lightning over a weekend-long outage. She estimated the load drained about three per cent of the truck's battery a day, a figure she said was similar to what others reported. She also noted the obvious trade-off: if the truck has to go into town, it is no longer powering the house, so generators still have a place.
The three per cent a day figure is one owner's estimate for fridges, a freezer and lights, with no electric heat. Battery size, outdoor temperature and load all change the result, so treat it as an example, not a rating.
Plugging appliances into the truck's own outlets with extension cords is different from powering the house. To feed a home's panel from an EV, B.C. Hydro says vehicle-to-home requires a transfer switch to control the flow of energy, plus a compatible vehicle and a bidirectional charger. Used only as isolated emergency power, it is a non-parallel connection that typically does not require B.C. Hydro coordination.
Generators follow the same logic. B.C. Hydro's generator guidance warns that a unit that is not isolated can feed back into the grid and electrocute neighbours or line workers, which is a real risk while crews are repairing lines nearby. It says a CSA-approved transfer switch is required, installed under an electrical permit and inspected along with the generator.
| Plug-in use without wiring | Appliances on cords run directly from the generator outdoors | Appliances on cords run from the vehicle's outlets |
| Feeding the home panel | CSA-approved transfer switch, electrical permit and inspection | Transfer switch, compatible vehicle and bidirectional charger |
| Main hazard | Backfeed to the grid; never run indoors or in a garage | Backfeed if improperly connected; vehicle unavailable while driving |
| Fuel and run time | Depends on fuel on hand and resupply | Depends on battery size, load and temperature |
| Compatible models | Wide range | Select trims only, per B.C. Hydro's list, including the F-150 Lightning |
Whichever route you choose, the wiring that ties backup power into your panel is permitted, licensed work. It belongs on the same list as the meter base: something to arrange with an electrician before the next storm, not during it.
Plugging appliances into the truck's own outlets with extension cords is different from powering the house. To feed a home's panel from an EV, B.C. Hydro says vehicle-to-home requires a transfer switch to control the flow of energy, plus a compatible vehicle and a bidirectional charger. Used only as isolated emergency power, it is a non-parallel connection that typically does not require B.C. Hydro coordination.
Generators follow the same logic. B.C. Hydro's generator guidance warns that a unit that is not isolated can feed back into the grid and electrocute neighbours or line workers, which is a real risk while crews are repairing lines nearby. It says a CSA-approved transfer switch is required, installed under an electrical permit and inspected along with the generator.
| Plug-in use without wiring | Appliances on cords run directly from the generator outdoors | Appliances on cords run from the vehicle's outlets |
| Feeding the home panel | CSA-approved transfer switch, electrical permit and inspection | Transfer switch, compatible vehicle and bidirectional charger |
| Main hazard | Backfeed to the grid; never run indoors or in a garage | Backfeed if improperly connected; vehicle unavailable while driving |
| Fuel and run time | Depends on fuel on hand and resupply | Depends on battery size, load and temperature |
| Compatible models | Wide range | Select trims only, per B.C. Hydro's list, including the F-150 Lightning |
Whichever route you choose, the wiring that ties backup power into your panel is permitted, licensed work. It belongs on the same list as the meter base: something to arrange with an electrician before the next storm, not during it.
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About the Author
Ryan is the founder of Homeowner.ca and a proud Canadian homeowner based in Guelph, Ontario. Over his 25-year career in digital publishing, he has focused on transforming complex information into clear, practical guidance that helps people make confident, well-informed decisions.
