Are our British Columbia members all okay?

I've been corresponding with my parents on Vancouver Island and my sister on Pender Island and they're all fine for now. How about the rest of the GRM family in the province? Some of the news stories are pretty heart breaking.

In reply to DeadSkunk (Warren) :

For those of us living under rocks(with reasonable wifi access, to be fair), what's going on in BC?

We're ok. I'm at the top of a hill in Langley, on an old gravel pit. Thankfully.

We have some friends we are worried about but the waters are starting to go down and people are getting out. A friend of ours lost a horse when her farm flooded.

Going to be a while cleaning up from this one.

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

Once-in-100-year flooding.

ShawnG said:

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

Once-in-100-year flooding.

Oof, I was in Nashville, TN for that "Thousand Year Flood" back in 2010, that was some seriously scary E36 M3. Thoughts are with you guys up there.

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

They had an overly wet September and October to saturate the ground, then got a month's worth of rain in 48 hours. Major highway and rail blockages between Vancouver and the inland areas of the province caused by flooding and/or mudslides, infrastructure damage that will take quite some time to assess and repair. Farmers are going to be really affected by the flooding from loss of buildings to drowning livestock.

Big chunk of Highway 8 fell into the river.

Most of Abbotsford under water. Some of my wife's relatives got rescued in a boat. Abbotsford is where most of BC's farming is.  80% of the provinces eggs come from there.

Entire city of Merritt evacuated due to flooding.

Big mudslide across the highway in Lillooet.

Parts of Princeton flooded.

Some parts of Coquihalla Highway are washed away. I think, actually, MOST of the highways through the province are impassible at the moment (I could be wrong).  And of course, the panic-stricken have freaking decimated the grocery stores.

There's probably a lot more going on.

Waiting for the four horsemen of the apocalypso.

In reply to SkinnyG (Forum Supporter) :

Hang in there , Bud. Hopefully the highways can be patched enough for transport traffic to start moving supplies. I thought I read Hwy 7 was open in one direction and they're working on getting Hwy 3 open soon.

They opened Hwy7 last night to get the people stuck in Hope back home and then closed it again to get started on the repair work.

Sounds like Hwy3 will be open soon.

The news said there are 5 washouts on the Coquihalla hwy so I doubt it will be open anytime soon, even with Jamie Davis Towing on the job, lol.

The area that flooded in Abbotsford was a lake 100 years ago and we've been pumping it dry ever since. The water was just too much for the pumps this time. Makes for great farmland.

One of my wife's friends is in Abbotsford, her farm is underwater and she lost one of her horses.

We have friends with a ranch in Princeton, their feedlot is under water but everything else is safe and dry. I think they got all the cattle out.

Another friend is in Merritt, they moved their trailer to high ground and are staying.

So far everyone I know is safe.

Hoping Bearmtnmartin will chime in here, he's up near Hope.

Other than the mixed rain and snow in Qualicum Beach right now things aren’t too bad. The effects were more like a typical Pineapple Express  some local flooding an RV park on the little Qualicum River was evacuated and the typical stay from creeks warnings came out.

Wasn't there flooding in Chemainus as well?

Always remember, nature bats last.

So many of the rail lines are on the same side of the valleys as the road so one slide takes out both. The CP main line will take quite some time to fix. That will hurt west coast shipping. I remember watching lengthy coal trains heading for Vancouver the summer I worked out there.

Just got word that they're evacuating Coalmont and Tulameen. Hope all the people are getting out ok.

The Coalmont Saloon was the oldest operating bar in B.C. until it closed a few years ago. I had a beer in there when it was 101 years old, just me and the owner. The divot is still in the floor where one of the bikers did a burnout in there a number of years ago.

ShawnG said:

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

Once-in-100-year flooding.

 

That happened twice in the 10 years I lived in Texas

Those photos above show examples of the damage but there are numerous washouts on the major highways and railways. The town of Merritt saw three times the previous record single day volume come down the Coldwater river, and Princeton saw similar volumes. My family is fine but I had two 80 gpm pumps keeping my house empty, and I have lost a bunch of stock in my Sumas Wshington warehouse. I can't get down to look so I will not know till next week, but in the big scheme of things that's a minor detail. The entire town was under water. I have a friend who was trapped between washouts and spent three nights and four days in her car, and we know others who were air lifted out. Quite the gong show. We are very fortunate the main Sumas (Barrowtown) pump station kept operating as it was expected to be overwhelmed which would have dumped another 10 feet of water into the flooded area. 

My brother is on Vancouver Island outside Duncan and thankfully lives enough up in the hills that they aren't too badly impacted. My folks have been splitting their time between BC and the States, but are back on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington now, where downed limbs and brief power outages have been the main nuisance. Hopefully their place in Canada is doing alright.

My thoughts are with all of our Northern brothers and sisters as they recover from this storm!

I'm from the Sumas, WA area originally and most of my family and friends are up there. It's been surreal watching them and corresponding with them throughout the floods. 

So far nobody I know has been hurt, but many homes destroyed

Just heard this morning. The army is here to build a levee to keep the water out but they're going to have to sacrifice 10 properties to keep the others from flooding.

There's another storm on the way with another 4 inches of rain forecast. Water levels are going up again today. Our friends house is expected to flood today. We can't get out there to help.

Wow, this is terrible, but I'm glad the loss of life seems to have been low.  Best of luck to everyone in the region.

This is going to take a long time to fix. There are so many bridges washed out on the Coquihalla alone.........BC Highway 8 washout | A major rain event has impacted much … | Flickr

Blacks Pharmacy in Merritt has been told by the city government and the RCMP that they are not allowed to serve anyone living outside of Merritt in order to help enforce the evacuation order.

Crazy

This sounds a lot like the flood SC had in 2015. We had 19 deaths, over 400 roads closed including all the major interstates, 36 dam failures, bridges all over the state were washed out, and $1.5 billion in damages. 

I hope you guys stay safe. 

And, now, because people are panicky, stupid animals. We have a restriction on buying fuel in the lower mainland. No more than 30l at a time.

You can just go to more than one gas station though.

I was under the impression that our fuel came through a pipeline to the Ioco refinery or in a truck from the Cherry Point refinery in Washington. I could be wrong though.