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Help for evacuees

BC Hydro bill help for British Columbians who are evacuated 

We know that the last thing you’re thinking about if have to evacuate your home or business is turning off lights, appliances and electronics. That’s why we proactively monitor evacuation orders in the province and offer bill credits and payment plans for customers who are evacuated due to a natural disaster, like a wildfire, flood or landslide.

Bill credit & payment plans for evacuees

Residential and commercial customers who are affected by an evacuation order are eligible to receive a credit for the electricity consumed for the duration of the time they’re out of their home, if the order is for five days or longer. We also offer flexible bill payment plans for when you’re able to return home.

How the bill credit works

We proactively monitor evacuation orders year-round to identify those lasting at least five days. We’ll then automatically apply a credit to your account for the electricity consumed during the period you’re out of your home or business due to evacuation order. This credit applies to residential, small business (Small General Service rate), and irrigation customers. In most cases, you don’t need to call to tell us about your evacuation. The credit will be automatically applied to your next bill.

If you have questions, or haven't received the credit within three months after the evacuation order has been lifted, please contact our customer service team at 1 800 BCHYDRO (1 800 224 9376).

For residential customers whose property was unfortunately destroyed as a result of the natural disaster, we’ll automatically waive all electricity charges since the previous billing period, including for electricity used prior to the evacuation order. Waiving these charges means you won’t receive a final bill for the account. We proactively monitor evacuation areas where properties were lost so there's no need to call us to report.

We’ll also waive the electricity service connection charge for any residential customer that rebuilds their home, if it’s not paid for by insurance.

We use information from emergency officials to help us determine evacuation dates and evacuation regional borders. Bill credits are based on the actual usage measured by your electricity meter during the evacuation duration.

Payment plans

If an evacuation order led you to pay your bill late, we’ll waive the late payment charge. And if you need more time to pay, you can request a catch-up plan by calling our customer service team at 1 800 BCHYDRO (1 800 224 9376) or set one up yourself in MyHydro.

Determining if your power is on before returning home 

Not all areas under an evacuation order experience power outages. Before you return home, you can check to see if your power is on two ways:

  • Using your mobile device, visit our outages list, scroll to the bottom of the page and select the address tile. Enter your home address in the search bar to see if there's currently an outage for your property.
  • Call 1 800 BCHYDRO (1 800 224 9376) and follow the prompts to identify your property and be provided with any outage information, or speak directly with an agent. 

If you've returned home and the digital clocks aren't blinking, then you likely didn’t have a power outage. 

Electricity use information is available in MyHydro

Your insurance company may request additional information about power outages in support of your insurance claim. Consider supporting your claim with individual electricity use data you have access to online via your MyHydro account. If you don't have a MyHydro account, it only takes a few minutes to sign up.

Please note that because some BC Hydro equipment may have been lost in the natural disaster, electricity use data may not be immediately available for all impacted customers. Also note that if your meter is manually read, data won't be available until we're able to read your meter.