Storm knocks out power to 50,000 on B.C.'s South Coast

The first big fall storm hit B.C.'s South Coast last night, knocking out power to up to 50,000 customers across the Vancouver Island, Sunshine Coast and Metro Vancouver areas at the peak of the storm.

By 7 a.m. PT,power had been restored to most customers, leaving about 5,000in the Lower Mainland and 10,000 on Vancouver Island still in the dark.

• For a full list of outages click here

West Vancouver fire Chief Jay Brownlee said his firefighters were kept busy overnight and into the morning attending to back-to-back calls for damage caused by the storm.

"We've seen a spike in emergency calls related to the severe rain and wind event," said Brownlee. "We've seen downed power lines, trees across the road, power poles snapped."

Brownlee said he wasn't aware of any damaged buildings injured people,as of 1:45 a.m.

Some of the strongest winds were recorded on Trail Island and Sisters Island, where gusts hit 117 km/h at the height of the storm.

At one point, the Sea to Sky Highway was shut down in both directions after a large tree fell onto the highway. It brought down some power lines as well, but hydro crews were able to clear it and get traffic moving again around 3:20 a.m.

By Friday morning, most routes were clear, and wind and rainfall warnings had been lifted by Environment Canada.

Some BC Ferries sailings were also cancelled on Thursday evening, but all routes were running normally on Friday morning.

• BC Ferries updates on Twitter

With files from Gian-Paolo Mendoza