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Courtenay hit especially hard by fierce winter storm

A severe windstorm Monday morning caused power outages in many parts of Vancouver Island.
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This boat was battered Monday morning on a beach near Beach Drive in Comox.

A severe windstorm Monday morning caused power outages in many parts of Vancouver Island. The area in and around Courtenay was hit especially hard, with an estimated 27,000 B.C. Hydro customers affected during the peak of the storm between 10 and 11 a.m."We're certainly bringing that number down quite a bit now," company spokesman Ted Olynyk said Monday at 1:15 p.m. Cumberland was not hit as hard as the rest of the Comox Valley because the storm came in through the east coast, thereby impacting communities closer to the ocean.Schools in the Comox Valley and Campbell River were closed Monday. The storm also caused B.C. Ferries to cancel sailings on 15 routes.If not the biggest storm of the winter, Olynyk said it was "certainly up there," noting the number of broken power poles. "This is quite a significant event," he said. "The whole south coast, we had about 135,000 customers (without power)."