Unless the region sees a repeat of Monday's powerful late-summer storms, more than 11,000 residents from Pritchard to the Shuswap shouldn't have to wake up in the dark Tuesday.
Heavy rain and a raging wind hit the Thompson-Shuswap early, knocking over trees and overturning docks.
"It sounded like an express train," Magna Bay resident Bryan Johnson said of the sound as the storm hit.
The rain and wind swept Kamloops shortly after 5 a.m. but didn't strike at Shuswap Lake until about 6:30 a.m. By the time it was over, 11,500 BC Hydro customers were without power.
Hydro spokeswoman Jennifer Walker-Larsen said the wind toppled a tree and knocked out a transmission line near Chase. That impacted 2,700 village residents.
The remaining outages were more isolated. Walker-Larsen said crews worked hard through the morning to restore power, with the majority of customers back online by 2:30 p.m.
Johnson said Shuswap Lake was smooth as glass when he let his dog out at 6 a.m. Then the storm hit.
He said the waves were big enough to lift an irrigation pump out of the water and deposit it on the beach.
"It was left high and dry," said Johnson. "The waves were three or four feet high."
He said a couple of plastic docks were also overturned.
Although the storm sounds severe, Johnson said they aren't unusual. He's been on the lake for nine summers and sees about three or four a year.
"We face Copper Island to the southwest and you can see them come up the lake," he said of the storms that move through the region.
