Your Vancouver Sun
It's a rainfall record for the province
Chilliwack River hits 20 times normal volume and hundreds are forced to leave their homes
Heavy rains and fallen leaves that blocked drains kept crews in Stanley Park busy Monday trying to keep the roads open.
Heavy rains and fallen leaves that blocked drains kept crews in Stanley Park busy Monday trying to keep the roads open. This knee-deep puddle is near Lumbermen's Arch.
Randy Shore and Chad Skelton, with files from Glenn Bohnand Frances Bula, Vancouver Sun; with files from the Langley Advance
Published: Tuesday, November 07, 2006
The heaviest rains ever recorded in B.C. triggered mudslides and flooding across the province Monday, closing highways and forcing evacuations on the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.
Allan Chapman, head of the river forecast centre for the Ministry of Environment, was paged from his bed at 1 a.m. as virtually every river on B.C.'s south coast began to rise dangerously, the result of record rainfalls.
"At 25 millimetres an hour I don't see how you could breathe. It's like being under water," Chapman said. "And we measured 20 to 25 mm an hour for three hours straight at one point.
"We have never recorded rainfall that heavy."
Weather models produced by the Meteorological Service of Canada predicted the deluge in time for the ministry to alert municipalities, many of which dedicated crews to clearing leaves from storm drains.
"We knew it was coming. The forecasters were noting the onslaught with phrases like 'This weather model has never predicted this much rainfall,' " Chapman said.
Some parts of B.C. measured up to 350 mm of rain since Thursday afternoon, Chapman said. The normal rainfall for the entire month of November is about 650 millimetres.
Some rivers rose higher than others. The "massively swollen" Chilliwack River hit a 25-year high and broke through its banks, leading the Fraser Valley Regional District to order the evacuation of about 200 people along Chilliwack Lake Road.
As of 9:30 p.m. Monday, 150 people had registered at the makeshift reception centre at the Vedder Road Legion Hall.
Evacuees were being assigned rooms in local hotels, according to Jane Sowik, manager of administrative services for the Fraser Valley Regional District.
Water flowing through the Chilliwack River was roughly 20 times normal Monday afternoon. The flow, normally about 50 cubic metres a second, reached 1,000 cubic metres per second, according to Chapman. Discharge as measured at the Vedder bridge was expected to rise as high as 1,100 cubic metres per second overnight.
The FVRD declared a local state of emergency for the Chilliwack River Valley.
Terasen Gas shut off gas to 168 homes in the area as a precaution. The state of emergency allows the district to compel people to leave their homes, implement emergency response plans, activate liability protection and qualify for financial assistance from a special fund administered by the province.
Homes in the Chilliwack Lake Road and Wilson Road area were evacuated after the Chilliwack River breached its dikes. Water poured across the road in many spots and some homes were partly under water.
Leonard Farmer, who has lived on the river side of Chilliwack Lake Road for 10 years, said he started to notice his property flood at about 8 a.m.
"At eight o'clock it was bad. But by nine the water was rushing across the road," said Farmer. He said he and his wife, Doris Ruffell, grabbed their horses to move them across the road to higher ground. When they came back, just an hour later, a stream of rushing water was running between the road and his house.
Hours later, ignoring an evacuation order, Farmer stood at the side of the road looking across at the house he could not reach. He said his dog and cat were still inside the house and 100 chickens were stranded in his barn.
Farmer said local residents have been complaining about the dike system for years, most recently three years ago when heavy rains caused a minor flood.
"When [the dike] went out three years ago, they had trucks running 24 hours a day hauling rip-rap in there," he said. "But when the river started to recede, they just quit and left it the way it was."
A few houses down, Maggie Humeny, who has lived in her house for 23 years, was also ignoring the evacuation order Monday afternoon. She said she was worried about her five horses, whose barn is just few feet from the flood waters.
In Humeny's backyard, which is normally a dry field, there was a rushing river of water 20 metres wide on Monday afternoon. Humeny said there have been small floods in the area every few years but she'd never seen anything like this.
All along Chilliwack Lake Road, volunteers were laying hundreds of sandbags in an effort to keep some of the water at bay.
At 7 p.m. Monday, the river forecast centre predicted that the Chilliwack will remain flooded until sometime today.
Hope declared a state of local emergency at the Othello Tunnels area after debris blocked the Coquihalla River. More than 100 homes have been placed on evacuation alert. Ten homes were evacuated near Silver Hope Creek, and a reception centre was opened to assist evacuees.
Other evacuations were under way in Squamish late Monday, as the Squamish was rising rapidly and was expected to continue rising today, causing some flooding upriver from Brackendale. The town of Squamish is not in danger, Chapman said.
In Maple Ridge, where the Alouette River flooded, a dozen homes were evacuated.
Chapman said the Nooksack River was also expected to breach its banks in Washington State Monday night.
"Flood waters will come over the border, putting the southern edge of Abbotsford in danger of flooding," said Chapman.
On Vancouver Island, hundreds of homes and businesses were flooded and the main link between Victoria and Sooke was shut down.
In Saanich, municipal workers were kept busy with calls to about 60 flooded homes, though no one had to be evacuated, said Saanich public works manager Mike Ippen.
In Langford, a Legion hall was opened as an emergency operations centre for people flooded out of their homes.
In Sooke, Bilston Creek surged over its banks and onto Sooke Road, turning the main artery to Victoria into a lake.
Although rains eased late in the day, the Cowichan and Sooke Rivers were expected to flood overnight, said Chapman. And high water in the Tulameen River will bring flooding to Princeton today.
However, by late Monday, several Lower Mainland rivers -- including the Alouette, Stave and Coquitlam -- had peaked and were beginning to recede. The Chemainus and Englishman rivers on Vancouver Island were also receding.
"The rainfall probably ended a little earlier than forecast," said Chapman. "Some of the rivers on Vancouver Island have started to recede."
Chapman said the situation was less clear in the Fraser Valley, but things were looking hopeful.
"The rain has quit, so they're probably receding now," Chapman said at 9 p.m. Monday.
Flooding, mudslides and washouts also closed highways across southern B.C. and Vancouver Island. A mudslide closed Highway 3 east of Hope Monday morning, covering the road with up to 50 metres of rock and mud up to three metres deep.
Highway 3 is expected to re-open to single-lane traffic sometime today, said Jeff Knight, communications manager for the Ministry of Transportation.
Motorists are being detoured up the Coquihalla Highway meanwhile, he said. A second mudslide on Highway 3 closed the road about 15 kilometres from Princeton.
Hemlock Valley Road was also covered by a mudslide Monday.
In Langley, construction workers stripped down to their underwear and dove into the Nicomekl River on Monday afternoon to save four youngsters from possibly drowning.
The four pre-teens tried to cross the river on a suspension foot bridge near 207th St., said Langley City fire chief Jim McGregor.
But the river was much higher than expected, and the kids quickly ran into problems. One boy and one girl were able to make it back safely to the shore, but another girl and a boy needed help. The boy was swept away in the current.
Chad Becher, a 29-year-old Abbotsford man, and other workers waded out into the floodplain in an attempt to save the kids.
Joel Visscher, swam out to the boy, while Kevin Loewen, a 22-year-old Aldergrove man, rescued the girl.
"It was just poor judgment for the kids," McGregor said, but it was good fortune those workers were there and willing to pitch in.