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A new round of heavy rainfall is hitting southwestern B.C. as the region continues to clean up from a battering of flooding and damaging winds over the last week.
Here’s the latest:
- There are approximately 100 properties under evacuation order, including 36 in Abbotsford, and 1,200 under evacuation alert across B.C., according to the province.
- About 5,800 B.C. Hydro customers are without power.
- A Chilliwack woman is dead after being struck by a falling tree during strong winds in the Fraser Valley.
- Highway 3 from Hope to Manning Park is closed due to landslide damage.
- The Sumas border is open to passenger traffic, but not commercial vehicles.
- DriveBC has a list of all other road closures and reopenings.
- The City of Vancouver has opened extra shelter spaces due to the rainfall warning.
Environment Canada is forecasting up to 70 millimetres of rain in areas including Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley for Tuesday, lasting into Wednesday morning.
The agency issued a rainfall warning for southern parts of Vancouver Island, Howe Sound, parts of Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.
Cleanup started Monday in the Fraser Valley as water that flowed across the border from the Nooksack River in Washington state began to recede, but the flood threat remains for several B.C. rivers and has expanded to Metro Vancouver’s North Shore.
WATCH | Chilliwack residents clearing out flood debris:
More floods expected for Fraser Valley amid rainfall warnings
Rainfall warnings remain in effect for parts of the Fraser Valley despite a few breaks in the weather Monday afternoon. As Kier Junos reports, In Chilliwack efforts are being made to clear out debris caused by several days of heavy rain.
The B.C. River Forecast Centre has a flood warning in place for the Chilliwack River and Sumas River, meaning river levels have overflowed or are expected to imminently and result in flooding.
Flood warnings have been issued for Vancouver Island, parts of the South Coast and the Sea-to-Sky corridor — regions that were under a flood watch — as heavy rain continues to fall.
Environment Canada says 190 millimetres of rain fell in Squamish, north of Vancouver, on Monday, while 163 millimetres of rainfall was recorded in Zeballos on the northwest coast of Vancouver Island.
The District of Squamish said in a statement late Monday that the rain forced it to conduct a controlled release of wastewater into the Harris Slough to alleviate pressure on its treatment plant, and water sampling was underway.
On the North Shore Mountains, water levels on the Seymour River rose rapidly earlier Monday, reaching a flow level that typically occurs about once every 50 years, according to the River Forecast Centre.
However, as conditions stabilized, the centre downgraded the North Shore flood warning to a flood watch.
B.C. Emergency Management Minister Kelly Greene said said residents should avoid riverbanks and waterways as the water levels are high and the banks may not be stable.
Jen Ford, the board chair for the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District and a councillor for the Resort Municipality of Whistler, said Tuesday that the rainfall had caused debris to pile up on local roads, but that there had so far been no landslides or rockslides related to the weather.
More resiliency needed, says federal transport minister
Federal Minister of Transport Steve MacKinnon, who is in Vancouver to speak to the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade on Tuesday, said he understood “how stressful” it has been for people impacted by the flooding.
He said his government is committed to building resiliency in the region’s transportation routes, some of which closed last week, effectively disconnecting B.C.’s Lower Mainland from the rest of the country.
“Single points of failure are not a good thing to have in your transportation systems and your supply chains,” MacKinnon told CBC’s The Early Edition.
“We have to give a lot of thought to how we make our transportation networks, road, marine, rail, all of them more resilient, more resistant to these obviously more frequent weather events.”
A home is pictured surrounded by floodwater in Abbotsford, B.C., on Friday, Dec. 12. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
B.C. Hydro said it was making progress Tuesday morning on restoring power to customers across the province who remain without service due to strong winds brought on by the latest storm.
It said on its website that at its peak on Monday, more than 90,000 customers were without power, with the hardest hit areas in Squamish, Duncan and Hope.
Weather records fall
Environment Canada data shows Monday was unseasonably warm. More than two dozen communities set new daily high temperature records in B.C.
Kamloops recorded a high of 18.6 C, breaking a record of 13.3 C set in 1962. It was 16.8 C at the Victoria International Airport on Monday, which eclipsed the previous record of 14.3 C set in 1999.
Temperatures were in the mid-teens for many parts of the province.
The weather across the South Coast is expected to change through the course of the week from above-seasonal temperatures to much lower ones. Overnight lows in Squamish are expected to be below zero by Saturday, while those in Vancouver could get to 1 C by the weekend.
