Canada: British Columbia declares flood emergency

Published on : 11/18/2021 – 01:35

British Columbia Premier John Horgan announced a state of emergency on Wednesday (Nov. 17), after torrential rains on Sunday and Monday caused landslides and flooding, killing one and causing thousands of evacuations.

Three people are also missing in landslides, police said during this press briefing. “Unfortunately, we expect to confirm even more deaths in the coming days,” said John Horgan.

The state of emergency aims to restore access to highways as quickly as possible, which have been closed for several days and are disrupting supply chains. This inclement weather also led to the disruption of rail services to the Port of Vancouver.

Travel is not recommended in order to prioritize the delivery of essential goods and medical and emergency services. This measure is in effect for 14 days and can be extended.

Army support

Earlier today, the Canadian government announced the deployment of “Canadian Forces air support to assist with evacuation efforts, support supply routes and protect residents from floods and landslides.”

“Hundreds of members of the Canadian armed forces are on their way to help,” said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, adding that thousands of soldiers could be sent. Justin Trudeau, traveling to Washington, also pledged that the government “would be there for the cleanup and reconstruction” after these “extreme weather events”.

Entire streets are underwater in many cities after the Fraser Valley east of Vancouver recorded as much as 250mm of precipitation on Monday. Some places received roughly 95% of their monthly precipitation in 24 hours.

“The next steps may require extraordinary measures only permitted under the state of emergency,” said Mike Farnworth, Minister of Public Safety. “It is a catastrophic event,” he lamented.

Hundreds of farmers affected

This exceptional measure was previously taken to combat the coronavirus pandemic. And this summer, when forest fires ravaged the province, which was suffocating under a historic heat wave. The village of Lytton, 250 kilometers northeast of Vancouver, had been 90% destroyed at the end of June by a fire in the middle of an extreme heat wave after reaching 49.6 degrees.

Prime Minister John Horgan highlighted “unprecedented challenges in public health, wildfires, heat domes and now never-before-seen flooding.”

Like Tuesday, the weather was milder on Wednesday, with no rain. But the floods particularly affected hundreds of farmers in the region, authorities said. “Some are still inundated, others are sheltered and we have thousands of animals that have perished,” lamented Lana Popham, the provincial minister of agriculture. Images showed a man on a jetski pulling a cow with a rope to rescue it despite the high water level, or a farmer evacuating a goat from a flooded barn.

Earlier this week, Ottawa had already sent helicopters to rescue about 300 motorists stranded by landslides.

Abbotsford, a few dozen kilometers from Vancouver, on Tuesday evening urged some of its 162,000 residents to immediately evacuate due to the potential failure of a pumping station. The day before, the 7,000 residents of the town of Merritt, 300 km northeast of Vancouver, were also evacuated.

With AFP