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A pedestrian walks in the heavy rain in Vancouver’s West End on Tuesday.Justine Beaulieu-Poudrier/The Globe and Mail
Kris Latham is used to seeing the rescue horses she cares for traversing her riverside ranch in Squamish, B.C. – not coho salmon.
But after heavy rain rocked British Columbia’s South Coast, her ranch staff on Thursday morning noticed fins flapping in a flooded field at her acreage, which offers glamping and a wedding venue in addition to its equine services.
For a week, a succession of powerful storms have battered B.C., swelling rivers, obstructing some roadways and raising the threat of landslides. By Thursday, communities on Vancouver Island and along the Sea-to-Sky corridor were facing evacuation orders, alerts and warnings to shelter in place.
The District of Squamish warned Thursday morning that water being discharged from BC Hydro’s Cheakamus Dam at Daisy Lake could lead to localized flooding of roads and properties. The district said the decision to release the water would create room in the reservoir for more rain.
Heavy rain prompts flood warnings, evacuation order in parts of B.C.’s South Coast
Cheakamus Dam, a landmark beside Highway 99 to Whistler, is upriver from Ms. Latham’s ranch. She said at around 8:30 a.m. the nearby river swelled; frigid water overcame the metre-high berm and poured into the low-lying part of the horse sanctuary.
Luckily, she said, an equipment operator was able to jump into the excavator stored on-site and quickly begin rebuilding the dyke. That’s when they noticed the salmon.
“We got some fishing nets, and we got them up and put them back in the river,” she said.
There was no lasting damage to the fish or her property, and Ms. Latham said she doesn’t begrudge BC Hydro for releasing the water from the dam.
Still, her local district told residents of Paradise Valley to shelter in place after the dam discharge swamped nearby roads.
Peter Spitzer is one of the nearby residents staying home after being cut off by the swollen river waters.
He has been at his property near the confluence of the Cheakamus River and Culliton Creek for nearly 40 years, and has seen floodwaters break their banks before.
Mr. Spitzer and his neighbours in the flood zone about 16 kilometres from Squamish know the drill.
“We all stay put and help the neighbours out if somebody needs anything. We usually have food and water for quite a few days before we run out,” he said Thursday.
To the north, past Whistler, the entire Village of Pemberton is under an evacuation alert.
Pemberton issued an evacuation order on Wednesday for a stretch of Airport Road in the community’s southeast, due to “immediate danger to life safety caused by flooding.”
Residents elsewhere in the village, put under evacuation alert one day earlier, were advised to shelter in place as extremely high river flows and significant rain threatened to cut off road access and trigger landslides.
The Lil’wat Nation upgraded an evacuation alert to an order early Thursday morning, citing “exceptionally high flows” on the Green River near Pemberton.
Floodwater had rushed over a section of Highway 99, and sections of Lillooet Lake Road were covered with up to a foot of water, the Lil’wat Nation chief and council said in an update.
The province’s River Forecast Centre issued a flood watch for the entire Central Coast, along with flood warnings for Kingcome, Howe Sound and Pemberton Valley regions.
Environment Canada had lowered most rainfall warnings by Thursday, although yellow warnings were still active for west and inland Vancouver Island, where heavy rains were forecast to last into Friday afternoon.
The weather agency reported rainfall levels of 307 millimetres in Port Mellon from Tuesday morning to Thursday at noon, the highest in the province, followed by Kennedy Lake on Vancouver Island, with 261 mm.
Last Friday, the Village of Zeballos, on the northwest coast of Vancouver Island, ordered the evacuation of 10 properties and evacuation alerts for 13 others, because of landslide risks that posed a threat to life and safety. Those directives remained in place on Thursday.
The storm has been linked to two deaths in Metro Vancouver. On Nov. 6, the driver of a sedan struck a 78-year-old woman who was attempting to cross the street during heavy rain in Vancouver’s Dunbar neighbourhood, according to police. The day after, a driver was killed when a falling tree struck two vehicles in Surrey.
Meanwhile, the search for a canoeist who has been missing off northern Vancouver Island since Nov. 6 was called off three days later because of challenging weather conditions, RCMP said.
With a report from The Canadian Press