How bad is it in BC right now? How much worse could it get?

Jordan If you’re listening to this in British Columbia, then I apologize for playing for you what are by now the sounds of your daily life. But if you’re listening to this from anywhere else in Canada, then I think it’s important that you really understand what life in BC sounds like right now.

BC Clips …I’m live in front of Abbotsford City Hall right now and we’re bringing you some breaking news here. There are some evacuation alerts in different parts of the city tonight…

…what little community centres we have and resources we have are being completely sucked dry. We have nowhere to house these people. We can’t get out because the highway is closed…

…all of a sudden, the road was wiped out. We slammed on the brakes. Two cars in front of us turned around and went back. And something just told me that we got to go forward and see if there’s somebody in there, and there was…

…they are evacuating cows over here with boats. This is a disaster, we live in a state of emergency…

…I’ve lived here for 68 years. I’ve not seen this kind of rainfall in those 68 years…

…people in southwestern British Columbia, Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast will be limited to 30 litres per visit to the gas station…

…similar to the early days of the pandemic, some grocery stores are placing limits on certain items…

..Abbotsford comes up for a breath as water levels begin to recede in parts of the city and the breached Fraser River, relieving pressure on the Barrowtown pump station, which is critical to keeping the Sumas Prairie from becoming a Lake again…

…sirens blaring from the US. A signal the Nooksack River is overflowing. It breached its dike this afternoon, hours after the city of Abbotsford put out a new evacuation order for the Huntingdon Village area of the city…

…we’re looking at two days of heavy sustained rain coming to an area that can ill afford it. Just look around. There’s really nowhere for this water to go…

…the storm may not have the same level of intensity as we saw mid month in some of our hardest hit areas, such as the Fraser Valley. But the cumulative effect of the succession of storms will be and continues to be a major challenge…

Jordan After the initial storm flooded BC more than a week ago, a lot of Canadians moved on from this story. There’s a lot going on in the world right now, after all, but I’m not sure that most of the country gets just how disruptive life is in BC right now, how incredible the cost of the damage and the rebuilding will be, or even how long it will take until things in the province are back to something resembling normal. In Canada, we are worried about a new COVID variant, in British Columbia people are worried about having enough food and gas and being able to travel the highways safely if evacuation becomes necessary. So what’s it really like to live and work in BC right now?

I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings, this is The Big Story. Monika Gul is the morning reporter at City News 1130 in Vancouver. They’ve been covering the disaster unfolding across the entire province. Hi, Monica.

Monika Hi, Jordan. How’s it going?

Jordan It’s going a lot drier where I am in Toronto than it is where you are, I’m sure.

Monika Yeah. Although I have family in Ontario, so I know you guys have had a bit of snow, which we’ve avoided. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, though, given the situation.

Jordan We’re going to talk about what the snow might mean, I guess. But as we speak right now, it’s Tuesday afternoon in Toronto and in BC. What’s the situation there right now in terms of this third atmospheric river, which I understand is happening as we speak?

Monika Yeah, I just actually got home not long ago, and it’s pouring rain. My street in particular, it’s a bit of a slope, and there’s just this rain, just water just sliding down my street. So, yeah, this atmospheric river, it’s the third one that’s hitting our province in essentially the last week. So it’s happening right now. And essentially all the communities that have been hard hit by the previous atmospheric Rivers and the previous storms, they’re all just kind of bracing themselves to see what this additional rain means for them. What impact it will have. The province actually just provided an update, essentially telling people to be careful, just warning people of this latest rainfall and telling people that there could be more evacuations. Rivers are rising, so everyone’s just kind of anxiously, nervously waiting to see what the storm will bring.

Jordan What would another really bad storm do to the situation there? I’m trying to get a picture, I guess, of how precarious it is in some of these communities that have already been hit hard.

Monika Yeah, it’s hard to say. Some of these communities haven’t even really fully recovered from the first big storm, which was now just over two weeks ago. Some of these places still have flooding. It didn’t fully go away. People haven’t even had a chance to go home yet to see what it looks like. So if it’s really bad, we’ll see the rivers go up again. Some of them could breach their banks or overflow their banks. Although I will say there’s been so much preparation ahead of this storm and the last two that we got this week, so much effort to reinforce and bolster dikes. Many communities have been even rising them as high as they could, adding in a few feet just to make sure that even if these rivers do swell and do go up, the chances of them overflowing is at least reduced.

But we would see flooding, worsening flooding in some areas that are already hard hit, and we could even see some landslides and mudslides just like we saw two weeks ago. In fact, the province will be closing at least one of the major highways again today as a precaution. It’s actually a highway that two weeks ago did have a fatal mudslide. A few people passed away. So I think they’re trying to obviously avoid a tragedy like this again, and they’re closing a highway to prepare. So a few things could happen if the storm ends up being really bad.

Jordan Aside from the sheer just amount of water that comes down, what’s making this flooding so bad? What is that extra water, the constant extra water coming in, doing to the other factors in this disaster?

Monika Yeah, well, one place that this water is coming from, outside of the rain, is the snow packs. In BC, we’re blessed with beautiful mountains. Some snow has already been falling on the tops this month. So some of that snow is melting on some of these warmer days. It’s coming down and it’s adding to the water. We’re also hearing from scientists and meteorologists who say that logging and wildfires is part of the reason that we’re seeing this flooding. Both of those things change the ground, change the slope and change the ground’s ability to absorb water, rain, snow packs, melting snow. So there are these additional things that are sort of contributing to this flooding. And with the rain, we mentioned the atmospheric river, but it is also just this one after the other, after the other. Some communities haven’t been able to catch their breath. So it’s a combination of things that are sort of causing what we’re seeing today.

Jordan You mentioned the initial storm and the disaster that happened a couple of weeks ago. We covered it, then, we covered what happened in Abbotsford, and we can talk about that in a minute. But just what’s the process been like over the last couple of weeks, how much had things improved and then gotten worse again, you mentioned one highway that had a fatal mudslide had reopened and may now be closed again. Like what’s been happening in terms of just back and forth and up and down?

Monika Yeah, it really kind of feels like one step forward, two steps back. Continuous progress but it’s with these storms kind of over our head and knowing that more rain is on the way, nothing really feels like it’s necessarily been fixed completely. In terms of the roads, there are some major highways that didn’t really reopen until several days after that initial storm, and even then, they were only open to essential trucks and essential vehicles.

And as you mentioned, there’s a highway that’s closing again as a precaution, there’s the one main highway that is used as a connector. Essentially, it’s the main highway that many people use when they go from the greater Vancouver area to BC’s interior. It’s called the Coquihalla. It’s literally a highway just like in the mountains. And that one got really hit hard two weeks ago, there’s just multiple sections of it that just completely washed away or collapsed in the storm with the floods and the mudslides. And that one, there is work ongoing to try to fix that. But I think the earliest they said there would be maybe a temporary fix, is sometime early next year. So that’s still weeks and weeks away. So in terms of the roads, it’s still very precarious.

In terms of the flooding, similar situation. Some of the communities are still underwater, still seeing areas underwater. People haven’t been able to go to their homes, or they’re just only now being able to return home and assess the damage. And it’s hard to say if anything is necessarily improved from two weeks ago. In some ways it has. But once again, with these storms this last week, it’s been just this constant watchful eye on the next storm that’s coming. A lot of the focus has just been on preparations and fixing breaches, sandbagging, putting protections where we can. That generally has been the focus. Recovery hasn’t been really top of mind just yet.

Jordan You mentioned at the beginning that you have some family in Ontario. I know you have colleagues across the country and probably know folks across the country. Does the rest of Canada grasp what it’s like to live in parts of BC right now? It must be really tough and ever changing.

Monika Yeah, I’ve definitely had friends text me, reach out. I had a couple who are thinking of visiting in December and January and they’re just kind of like, should I come? I don’t know. What is the flooding situation? Will I even be able to come during my planned trip? So I think there definitely is an awareness and I know it’s been sort of the big top story nationally for the last few weeks.

I do think maybe the rest of Canada might not understand just how widespread the issues are. It’s not just one community or one area that we’re talking about. The fatal landslide that happened two weeks ago is like hours drive away from Abbotsford, which is one of the communities that has been hard hit. And Abbotsford is hours away from Hope and Merritt, and these other communities that have been hard hit. So it’s just so many different parts of BC have been affected in different ways. I don’t know necessarily if coverage, a few minute story, necessarily sort of grasps just how widespread this problem is.

Jordan What has the government response been like? I know there were issues at the very beginning about not using the emergency alert system. Since then, what have they done? And I guess how has it gone over with the general public?

Monika Yeah. I think there’s definitely been a change in the response from the province since that first storm hit two weeks ago. As you mentioned, there was a bit of criticism that people didn’t get a heads up. The province didn’t really talk about that storm that was incoming ahead of time. The alert wasn’t used. And since then, before every storm, the province is putting out a release. It’s doing regular updates now. Pretty much every day there’s a press conference just kind of talking about the latest.

There is financial helping made available for people, about 2000 for those who have been evacuated. Local governments have also obviously been doing their part. Sandbagging has been available. There are emergency operations centres open for those who aren’t able to stay at home because they’ve been evacuated. So there are various supports from various levels of government. But the province, it’s definitely stepped up its communication since that initial storm. There’ll be assessments, I’m sure, after this, in terms of whether the response from the government has been adequate enough.

Jordan What about the supply chain in general? I know, again, in the aftermath of the initial storm, which I keep coming back to you because I do feel like a lot of the national media, including us, zipped in to kind of cover that storm and what was happening from it and then moved on to covering a new COVID-variant. But from what I understand, there are still supply chain issues. I understand fuel’s being rationed. I know a week or so ago we saw pictures of empty grocery shelves in places in BC. What’s that like right now?

Monika Yeah, it almost seems like it depends where you are. Even when those pictures were emerging and certain grocery stores were completely empty, there were folks in another city that were saying, oh, my grocery store is completely fine. So it really does seem to sort of depend on where you live and where or when the last time a particular grocery store was maybe stocked up.

But even aside from that, there are still definitely indications of some sort of supply chain issue. I was just at a drug store, Shoppers Drugmart and the self checkout actually didn’t have any grocery bags, and it even had a sign that said, due to supply chain issues, we don’t have any shopping bags. I was at a McDonald’s drive through about a week and a half ago, and they had a sign that said, we don’t have any fries, which was pretty shocking to me. McDonald’s without French fries. So there are these definitely clear indications. Even I ordered something online a few days ago, and it even said at the top, to customers in BC: your delivery might take a few days longer because of the supply chain issues. So it’s nothing severe. You’re able to still get groceries. I went a few days ago and was able to get what I needed, didn’t necessarily see too many empty shelves. There are still hints of supply chain issues, but nothing too serious.

But yes, when it comes to the gas, that is where it’s definitely most notable. The province has put a limit. Essentially, non essential drivers are expected to fill up only 30 litres at a time. And the order for that was supposed to lift early December, but they’ve extended it till mid December now. And one of the reasons is that the Trans Mountain pipeline has been offline since two weeks ago, and they’re still kind of struggling to bring it back up and running. So I think once that’s up and running, we could see that sort of restriction on gas lifted. But as it stands, that’s sort of, I think, the biggest impact people are seeing day to day when it comes to the supply chain issues.

Jordan It’s funny that you mentioned no French fries at McDonald’s because on the face of it, that kind of sounds funny. Like big problem, I couldn’t get my fries with my burger. But it must be those kind of things that add up and add up and add up all across the province to eventually maybe get the message across to people that like, life is different now. The issues that BC is facing are changing, just the small, everyday things that people take for granted.

Monika Yeah, I think there definitely is this realization. And climate change keeps coming up as well. BC has been so hard hit throughout this year. I remember I spoke with you earlier in the summer when Lytton, most of it was burned because of a wildfire. There has been that heat dome that we experienced throughout the summer that actually was fatal for many people. So it’s been just such a… I don’t want to say crazy, it almost seems like it’s an underwhelming word to describe it, but it’s been such an eventful — in a bad way — year for BC when it comes to weather events. And yeah, just climate change keeps coming up. And there’s that realization that what people said would happen in the future seems to be happening right now today in BC.

Jordan The one specific place I do want to ask you about before we close off is Abbotsford, just because it was the first one in the news, and when we covered it, people were hoping that the dike would hold and that the pumping station would be okay. That happened, thankfully. But I understand that with the Nooksack River still rising, that this place is in serious danger, do we know what’s happening as of now and what could happen with this new storm?

Monika Yeah. Well, last we heard from the Mayor yesterday afternoon, he actually was optimistic, I will say. Part of it is that there’s just been so much preparations, the military has been in, community has been rallying together, filling sandbags, and there’s been so much work that’s been happening over the last few days. So there is real hope that even with today’s storm, they will be hopefully okay or at least won’t see worse flooding. But it really just depends on the Nooksack River, what it does. And it’s just so hard to predict some of these things because it is so dependent on the weather and forecasting can only go so far. How a river will react with the added water depends. As it stands, the Sumas Prairie in Abbotsford is still underwater in some areas. And yeah, they’re just really hoping that the amount of water that comes down with this storm will be enough for them to be able to handle with the preparations that they’ve made so far.

Jordan Last question. And I know we’ve all got our fingers crossed that the preparations are enough in Abbotsford and everywhere, and that this storm hopefully does the least damage of all of them. But whenever this rain trails off, what’s next? I know you mentioned that it’s tough to think about right now, but I’m sure the government and municipal governments are getting these questions. How do you dig out from this, because as you mentioned, it’s everywhere across the province?

Monika It’s going to take months and years, I think, to fully recover out of this. Early estimations already put the damage in the billions. As a basic start, people are going to slowly, hopefully, return to their homes and they’re going to have to go through their things and assess the damage, figure out what they can keep, what needs to be torn down potentially, that kind of stuff.

There’s farmers who have lost farm animals. I mean, there were hundreds of chickens and cows that were lost throughout that flooding two weeks ago, and for many farmers that’s their whole life, some of these farms are multigenerational. It’s been passed down through the family. And it’s going to take years for some of these farmers, some of them even have crops that have been destroyed in the flooding. So it’s going to take years for some of them to sort of get back to where they were the day before the storm from two weeks ago. In fact, one farmer even says it will take some up to a decade to really get back to the profits and the work that they were seeing before the initial storm. So it’s going to take so long.

And even some of the roads, the Coquihalla, they’re talking about temporary measures being potentially ready in the new year. But permanent fixes and permanent repairs will definitely take some time after that. I think many communities are in for a bit of a long road here when it comes to recovery.

Jordan Monica, thank you for this. I know we’ll all be thinking of you guys and hoping this is the last weather event you get for quite some time and stay safe and take care.

Monika Thank you so much, I will.

Jordan Monika Gul, of CityNews 1130.

That was The Big Story. For more from us, head to the thebigstorypodcast.ca. Find us on Twitter at @TheBigStoryFPN. If you need the latest news on what is happening in British Columbia, you can find it from CityNews 1130 at vancouver.citynews.ca. You can email us at thebigstorypodcast@rci.rogers.com [click here!].

This podcast is available in every podcast player and on smart speakers, just ask your favourite assistant to “play the Big Story Podcast”.

Thanks for listening, I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings, we’ll talk tomorrow.

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