Rain and wind lashed the Cowichan Valley Monday night into Tuesday morning with the threat of even more but by mid-day Tuesday the wind had waned slightly, allowing BC Hydro crews to get on with the business of returning power to several areas.
Parts of Duncan suffered power outages but the Cowichan Lake area was hard-hit by wind storm, with Youbou, Caycuse, Mesachie Lake, Honeymoon Bay and big parts of Lake Cowichan itself left without power in a series of outages caused by the wind.
Trees down on the south side of the lake even stopped a school bus from getting to students in the Mesachie Lake/Honeymoon Bay area.
But this was just the first storm of several anticipated this week.
A strongly-worded weather alert was issued Monday for both east and west Vancouver Island, saying that winds could be up to 80 km/h over exposed areas The warning told property owners to watch for damage to parts of buildings, such as to roof shingles and windows and everyone to be on the lookout for loose objects blowing around and broken tree branches flying through the air.
In addition, heavy rain was forecast to come in waves this week, with experts warning that "the ground, already near saturation, has little ability to absorb further rainfall" and telling everyone to be cautious of washouts near rivers, creeks and culverts.