Thank you, Tevai, and everybody, for checking in. Yes, early Monday morning B.C. experienced major flooding and rock/mud slides, following heavy rainfall, that blocked major highways, trapping people in their vehicles with one known fatality and several people reported missing so far. Witnesses report many more possible casualties as mountainsides slid down onto roads without warning. People are living in their cars at the moment and food is already reported to be scarce as the supply chain is cut off in both directions (coming and going).
I’m a good few miles away from the closest affected city. I live in southwestern B.C., in the Lower Mainland (includes Vancouver, on the coast). The areas most affected by floods and road/highway washouts are in the Interior portion of B.C. I’m physically safe. A little shaken because my nephew had a close call. He was travelling from the Interior down to Vancouver early that morning (Monday). He was fortunate to be on a portion of the highway between the slides so he’s OK but stuck unless/until he can helicopter out as there are no intact highways between there and here. We are cut off from the rest of the province and they are cut off from us. I can’t help but go over the “what ifs” and it’s a very scary reminder that we’re not 100% in charge of our own destiny. You get up in the morning, head full of plans and wham. If you’re fortunate you get to fulfill those plans and carry on for a good long while enjoying life. Having a family member that close to a natural disaster makes it more personal and you can empathize even more with those suffering heartbreaking losses. You can't linger over the what ifs - what if he had been further up or down the road, etc. if you want to keep your sanity.
Amid the major road transportation interruptions, there are already reports of hoarding or panic buying of groceries and at least one supermarket was completely wiped out in less than a day, left only with empty shelves and freezers – reminiscent of the early days of the pandemic when people worried about obtaining groceries. A huge parking lot on the other side of the broken highway was shown on the news to be full of truckers going nowhere, parked for the duration, without immediate access to any amenities, including no washrooms.
Our public safety minister gave a news conference, struggling to maintain his composure as the extent of the damage and the human cost became apparent. We went from thinking at first that things could be back to normal within days, to weeks, and now they’re saying months. Those mountains are beautiful but when they rumble and tumble it’s a vastly different story. All the heavy debris will have to be removed, highways rebuilt, and everything else that all entails.
My nephew and his friend were sleeping in their car in a small town, in the rain and cold, when someone knocked on their window, invited them into their home, fed them and gave them a bed for the night. So many heartwarming accounts like that have already surfaced. People really do come through in times of emergency. I saw TV coverage of a hockey coach who invited a travelling minor league hockey team and their adults into his small home so they could find shelter and food. Lots of young males in a little space. They seemed to have kept their good humour and one said it’s a great bonding experience. “We already feel closer.” Certainly physically in that tiny space that is true!
Some of the affected towns/cities:
Merritt: Town flooded out – entire population evacuated (140 miles from Vancouver; 3.5 hr drive).
Agassiz: Mudslides closed major highway, people in vehicles trapped by debris and rescued by helicopter (125 miles from Vancouver; 2 hr drive).
Abbotsford: People rescued by boat as areas were flooded in only four hours by heavy rainfall, without warning. (40 miles from Vancouver). The floodwaters came from the Nooksack River (Washington, USA). Evacuation orders for some areas are in effect today (eg: Sumas Prairie) The whole city is presently under a state of emergency.
News stories:
https://globalnews.ca/news/8374573/people-trapped-vehicles-agassiz-highways-flooding/https://globalnews.ca/news/8377310/bc-flooding-mudslides-rescue-cp-rail/https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/merritt-flood-recovery-1.6250641Excerpts:
“B.C. public safety and transportation officials say it is still unclear when major highways across the province will re-open amid the heavy rain, flooding, mudslides and rockslides.”
“Search teams using dogs started looking for people whose cars may have been buried in landslides across the Canadian province of British Columbia on Tuesday, as the country’s two biggest railways reported serious damage to their networks.
“The storms, which started on Sunday, wrecked roads in the Pacific province, forced an oil pipeline to close and limited land access to Vancouver, the largest city.
“Canadian Pacific Rail said it was shutting down its Vancouver mainline because of the flooding, while Canadian National Railway said it experienced mudslides and washouts in southern British Columbia.
“Some areas received eight inches (200 mm) of rain on Sunday, the amount that usually falls in a month.
“Rescuers equipped with diggers and dogs will start dismantling large mounds of debris that have choked highways.
“If a bit of machinery contacts a vehicle or the dogs indicate a person, that’s when we stop and … dig by hand until we find what they were indicating, to confirm whether it’s a live victim or if it’s a recovery,” Captain John Gormick of Vancouver’s heavy urban search and rescue team told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
“Police in Abbotsford, some 70 km (40 miles) southeast of Vancouver, on Tuesday, ordered the evacuation of parts of the city.
“Authorities in Merritt, some 200 km (120 miles) northeast of Vancouver, ordered all 8,000 citizens to leave on Monday as river waters rose quickly, but some are trapped in their homes, city spokesman Greg Lowis told the CBC.
“We are not confident about the structural integrity of any of our bridges,” he said.
“The landslides and floods come less than six months after wildfires gutted an entire town, as temperatures in the province soared during a record-breaking heat dome.
“Helicopters carried out multiple missions on Monday to rescue hundreds of people trapped in their vehicles when mudslides cut off a highway near the mountain town of Agassiz, about 120km (75 miles) east of Vancouver.
“Canadian Forces Cormorant helicopters started rescue flights to the slide area and Farnworth [public safety minister] said they hope to rescue the remaining people in the next few hours.”
“Residents of Merritt, B.C., still reeling from a raging wildfire season that put the entire city on evacuation alert this summer, are now waiting for fall floodwaters to recede so they can survey the damage the latest disaster has delivered.
“All residents were ordered to evacuate the city, located about 200 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, shortly after 10 a.m. PT on Monday after flooding from the Coldwater River caused the complete failure of the municipality's wastewater treatment plant.
“That led to what city officials called an "immediate danger to public health and safety." As of Tuesday, all three bridges across the river were unpassable — one collapsed, the other two require inspection.”
“Thousands of farm animals are reported to have perished in the flood and thousands more are in "critical need of food", according to the province's minister of agriculture.”
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And the news still rolls in, updating the situation in all these places so familiar to me. We used to drive from Vancouver up through the Interior for summer holidays every year as kids. We had a cabin in Hope (funny coincidence that it’s town where my nephew is presently awaiting evac in some form). I have innumerable fond memories of all those places we travelled through, admiring the scenery and enjoying the farm produce and all the amazing fruit every year.
You never know what’s going to happen when you get up in the morning. After this season of fire and flood I’m at the point where I have a go-bag near the front door that I never unpack. I know that’s an overreaction but wow, it’s been a year or two, hasn’t it. No harm in being prepared for more. As they say, life isn’t for the faint of heart.
One of the enormous pluses in times of emergency is to see all the selflessness, resourcefulness and caring of all the good people that are around. Definitely the first-responders, so courageous, prompt and skilled, the officials keeping their heads and springing into action, as well as members of the affected communities who reach out to assist whoever they can, and all those further away who donate and commiserate and otherwise say “you’re not alone”.
I’m OK. Just a bit teary. Tired too. Looking to see what little I may be able to do to assist.
Thanks so much, everybody, for thinking of us.
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2021 07:55PM by Nightingale.