A massive thunderstorm charted a course over B.C.’s South Coast Saturday night, with more than 7,000 lightning strikes knocking out power to over 20,000 people, igniting wildfires, and causing chaos on streets and in airports.
At Vancouver International Airport (YVR), 50 flights were cancelled as a result of the weather. Madi Budden was one of the unlucky passengers whose plane got stuck on the tarmac for several hours after landing as the intense lightning activity made it too unsafe to disembark.
“We could see the lightning as we were landing, and that was kind of frightening,” Budden told CityNews.
“I thought, are we going to get struck by lightning? The sky was just lighting up.”
Budden’s hour-and-a-half flight down from Terrace with her three-month-old son became an all-night odyssey as they waited on the plane for more than five hours.
“We started running out of fuel, so they had to actually turn the plane off, which meant the AC went off. Everyone was hot and panicking and frustrated and tired.”
Other travellers say some people fell ill.
“Three people were kind of nauseous,” said passenger Abraham Makavy. “They were sick, having to sit down in that plane for that long. I think I saw two people have to [throw up]. Lots of people wanted to use the bathroom at the same time, so there was a little chaos there.”
Officials with the airport thank passengers for their patience but said this was standard procedure, as the dangerous weather forced them to issue a red alert and pause all operations.
“Just like you would not want to be out in the middle of a parking lot or a golf course during a thunder-and-lightning storm, we can’t have employees and passengers out on the airfield when that’s happening,” said Stephen Smart, YVR’s head of communications.
Smart says this was the longest red alert in recent memory. He says the airport called in more staff to help deal with the massive operational backlog, which wasn’t helped by the months’ worth of rain that came down in just six hours.
With the storm passing, power being restored, and flights back up to speed, for most, the only lasting impact will be the memories of the spectacular lightning show.
