B.C.'s Storm of the Century

"They [her six- and four-year-old children] are getting scared."

"My heart breaks listening to my kids [ask] for water and food and I have nothing to provide for them."

Angela Howard, marooned on a B.C. flood-swept highway

"We all had moments like,'Is this it? Is this the last time we're going to see our kids'?"

"We were talking to our parents and our families, but it was just a scary situation."

Melanie Forsythe, marooned between mudslides

"People were going off the side of the road. We had cars flipped over."

"A situation where one member [of rscue crew] had to throw in a life-jacket and swim out, wade out to a car that was overturned to bring someone back [to safety]."

Mike Serr, Abbotsford, B.C. Police Chief

A woman and children who were stranded by high water due to flooding are rescued by a volunteer operating a boat in Abbotsford, B.C., on Nov. 16, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

 

Angela Howard did her best to rise to the emergency occasion for her children, rigging plastic bags to the outside of her vehicle in hopes of catching rainwater as her children slept fitfully behind her in their car seats during their interminable wait for rescue. Every now and again she would turn on the car to warm the interior, carefully watching the gas gauge. 

The monumental rains and windstorm that began on Sunday had dissipated by Tuesday, leaving the threat of flooding to remain a major risk with more evacuations ordered for large swaths of the British Columbia cities of Abbotsford and Chilliwack. Nearby farmland was under water. Farmers were helping one another to get their livestock to higher ground  The entire 8,000 population of Merritt was evacuated on Monday.

The Port of Vancouver sees $550 million in cargo pass through daily, everything from cars to food. Now that eastward routes are out of commission with road closures due to rock- and mud-slides, goods  will not be moving as they normally do, to arrive at final destinations in good time. The entire country will feel the impact of this weather catastrophe, not only the people living in the B.C. Interior.

 

Parts of southern British Columbia remained under local states of emergency on Tuesday after unrelenting rains caused severe flooding, stranding hundreds of people in their cars across multiple highways and swamping homes in the Fraser Valley. Here, people are transported on a boat after being rescued from an area that was cut off due to flooding in Abbotsford, B.C. Ben Nelms/CBC

 

"This is like having a labour strike, it's big. It will harm the flowthrough of goods for however long this lasts", increasing costs and slowing down delivery times, noted rail consultant Malcolm Cairns. All rail service to and from the port facility was halted, according to the Port of Vancouver. The province is preparing to provide 1,000 cots to be put up in shelters at churches and high schools for stranded motorists.

Mudslides and flooding had trapped hundreds of people in their vehicles, forcing others to evacuate homes in communities nearby. Helicopter rescuers airlifted 275  people to safety from where they had been stranded for over 17 hours between mudslides near Agassiz, B.C., some 120 m. east of Vancouver. One woman was found dead in her car under a mudslide near Lilooet.  Others are reported missing.

 

Homes and farmland in the community of Sumas Prairie are pictured underwater during flooding in Abbotsford. Dozens of families living in the area were ordered to leave their homes immediately on Tuesday as water levels started quickly rising. Ben Nelms/CBC

 

Rescuers equipped with diggers and dogs worked to dismantle huge debris and mud mounds looking for anyone left behind in cars trapped under the mudslides. "If a bit of machinery contacts a vehicle or the dogs indicate a person, that's when we stop -- and dig by hand until we find what they were indicating, to confirm whether it's a live victim of if it's a recovery", explained Capt.John Gormick of Vancouver's heavy urban search and rescue team.

By the time the heavy rainfall subsided Monday afternoon several areas had received 100 to 250 mm of rain over a period of 36 hours, an amount that usually falls during B.C.'s fall-to-winter rainy season in a month's time. The Weather Network called it an "atmospheric river" that triggered multiple mudslides across highways and bridges. Winds gusting up to 90 km/r continued to blow through the province. According to Environment Canada, 20 rainfall records were set on Sunday.

Two people canoe past a submerged truck near a flooded Trans Canada highway in Abbotsford, B.C., on Tuesday. Officials in the province were still assessing damage from floods and mudslides after torrential rains that began on the weekend finally started to subside. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

British Columbia Extreme Weather Event ... Collapsed Geology

Officials believe about 50 vehicles were trapped on Highway 7 between the two debris fields, with approximately two to three people in each vehicle. (Julia Murray)

"Trapped between two slides are approximately275 additional people, including fifty children, who were advised to shelter in place overnight as debris was unstable and unsafe to cross."

"The current operational priority is evacuating those trapped between the slides, and Canadian Forces Cormorant helicopters are starting the first of multiple rescue flights between the slide area and a reception centre in Agassiz."

"The commendable efforts of Agassiz Fire Department last night in treacherous conditions was key to saving those trapped in their vehicles, which were filling with debris and water."

Joint release, City of Vancouver, Canada Task Force 1

"The visibility was nil in the middle of the day because the rain was coming down so hard."

"There are people here that are lacking insulin, and there are children."

"I feel scared, but at least we're safe in a vehicle. We're not stranded beside the river in a vehicle."

Melanie Forsythe, stranded on Highway 7, B.C.

"The floodwaters have now inundated two bridges across the Coldwater River, and floodwaters prevent access to the third."

"Continued habitation of the community without sanitary services presents risk of mass sewage backup and personal health risk."

"For your own safety, you must now leave Merritt. Please offer help to your friends, families and neighbours. Drive safely and take care of yourselves."

City of Merritt, Mayor Linda Brown

Helicopters are being used to rescue the roughly 275 people who were trapped overnight on the highway near Agassiz, B.C., after a mudslide.

 

British Columbia, arguably, the most geologically diverse and stunningly beautiful province in Canada has had what the Chinese curse calls 'living in interesting times'. This summer a small town in B.C. registered the hottest temperature -- through the appearance of a stationery heat dome -- ever recorded in Canada, and the town of Lytton burnt to the ground, as a result. Now, although this is the rainy season, downpours have vastly exceeded expectations.

The massive inundation of heavy rains has caused mudslides, as the result of an 'atmospheric river' bringing a rain deluge to parts of the province leading to an evacuation order in the Interior town of Merritt, with its 7,000 population. According to Environment Canada, 225 millimetres of rain deluged the community of Hope since Saturday, with 180 millimetres falling around Agassiz and Chilliwack, the home of Old Growth forests.

 

A vehicle is caught in a landslide near Agassiz, B.C., on Monday. (Submitted by Cory Lysohirka)

 

The local fire department of Agassiz was called out on Sunday evening before the Vancouver Heavy Urban Search and Rescue Team was called in the following day, Monday, to rescue a dozen people from Highway 7 close to Agassiz, in extremely difficult weather conditions. By Monday close to 300 people were trapped on Highway 7 between two mud slides closing off passage; they could go neither forward nor backward. A day later it would be discovered that 5 to 7 vehicles had been washed off the road into a ravine. It is not known how many people are missing.

 

Chilliwack Search and Rescue and a geotechnical engineer joined the two major rescue groups to survey the area for anyone who might have been trapped in the debris. Bright yellow Cormorant helicopters began picking up the stranded and dropping them off close to the Agassiz community centre, then taking off again for more rescue trips. 

 

A woman stranded by landslides near Agassiz, B.C., is pulled into a helicopter by Canadian Forces members on Monday. (Submitted by Cory Lysohirka)

 

Concerns were raised over the appearance of high winds, making rescue efforts more challenging. "They will be doing everything they can to ensure that they reach people who are trapped in their vehicles between those slides as quickly as possible", noted the province's public safety minister. Evacuees were informed they should head on to Kamloops or Kelowna. All gas stations were requested to remain open to accommodate those leaving Merritt under evacuation orders.

 

Slides and falling rocks necessitated the closure of the Highway 5 corridor leading between Hope and Merritt in the wake of 200 millimetres of rain on the weekend. Wind storms uprooting trees and causing power outages in some areas mostly in the eastern Fraser Valley, resulted from continued heavy rain on Monday. Wind gusts up to 90 kilometres an hour were expected for the capital Victoria and much of the south coast and into the Interior, according to a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.

 

Kayakers paddle down a flooded Trans Canada Highway after flooding in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Work on the highway is set to take days. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

"Definitely the atmospheric river will end today as it moves south, deeper into Washington state. That said, as that clearing happens, it's going to be coming with a big shot of wind", warned Armel Castellan, meteorologist. Flooding, mud and rock slides in part of the eastern Fraser Valley caused by heavy rain brought a local state of emergency and the closure of highways to and from the southern Interior.

House and Home magazine was set to feature a family home in Abbotsford for their Christmas issue, but it was hit by a wave of water on Sunday as creeks overflowed in the neighbourhood. Some homes sustained damage so severe they appeared to have been hit by a vehicle, not merely water. 

There are about 1,100 people stranded in Hope, B.C., many of them sleeping in local schools.