About 200 people were trapped atop Grouse Mountain as Vancouver’s severe Tuesday night thunderstorm shut down the tram.
“I was about to walk down, then the skies opened and the monsoon started,” said Anthony Mar, who was stuck up top for about three hours.
He said they were separated into lines to prepare for the tram, but weren’t allowed to descend before they had “20 minutes all clear.”
According to spokeswoman Jody Westbury, Environment Canada issued a weather standby for the mountain at 7:25 p.m. – meaning the Skyride couldn’t operate because of concern related to thunder and lightning.
By about 8: 25 p.m. they were able to get two trips down, but then went back on weather standby.
“We (had) about two trips worth of people waiting to descend the mountain,” said Westbury.
Shortly after 10 p.m., they were able to start up the tram and get the remaining people down.
The storm wreaked havoc across the Lower Mainland with 51 outages affecting over 3,000 customers, according to the B.C. Hydro website at 10:45 p.m.
Areas most affected were Coquitlam, Burnaby and Langley – power was expected to be restored by 12:30 a.m. Wednesday.
lcahute@theprovince.com
