UPDATE: FortisBC says power now fully restored in Rutland after large outage

(UPDATE: March 18 @ 5:10 pm) - FortisBC says the power is back on for everyone in Rutland.

Their outage map still shows a section of the Kelowna neighbourhood without power, but a post on social media from the utility provider says power has been fully restored to everyone that was affected by the Monday afternoon outage.

"Power has been restored to all customers in the Rutland area," the post explained. "We thank everyone for their patience."

FortisBC has still not indicated what caused the outage that saw around 7,000 customers lose power shortly before 3 pm.

Power has been restored to all customers in the Rutland area of #KelownaBC. We thank everyone for their patience.

— FortisBC (@FortisBC) March 18, 2024

(UPDATE: March 18 @ 4:25 pm) - Power has been restored to another 2,500 customers in Rutland.

The outage that was affecting around 7,000 customers shortly before 3 pm is now only affecting 2,447 customers, mainly in the south and east portions of the community.

There is currently no estimate as to when power will be restored for them.

(UPDATE: March 18 @ 3:45 pm) - FortisBC's outage map shows that power has been restored for around 2,000 customers in Rutland.

However, around 5,000 remain without power this afternoon and there's still very little information about the cause of the outage.

KelownaNow will continue to update this story as it develops.

(Original story: March 18 @ 3 pm) - A large power outage is currently affecting most of Rutland.

According to FortisBC, nearly 7,000 customers in the Kelowna neighbourhood are currently without power.

The outage began around 2:50 pm and a cause has not yet been identified.

The FortisBC outage map shows that the general boundary of the power outage is:

• Hwy 97 to the west
• Near McCurdy Road to the north
• Gibson Road and Hwy 33 to the east
• Springfield Road to the south, with one section of properties out below Springfield

There is currently no estimated time for when the power might be restored.

KelownaNow will update this story as more information becomes available.