Flooding Plans and Preparation

By 250 News

The Prince George Office  of the Provincial Emergency Program has added extra staff  to  work with the  Peace -Liard regions because of low level flooding that has already  started.  That flood preparation information was made available today as experts from the Provincial Emergency Program River Forecast Centre Ministry of Health and other provincial and federal agencies joined Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General John Les in a special briefing.

Allan Chapman of the River Forecast Centre, says April was not kind “The cool wet month meant that instead of being at the end of the snow season, we have seen more snow building up in the higher elevations.”  Snowpack levels remain at near record, or record high values. 

As of May 1st, the  snowpack on the Nechako Basin was  165% of normal, that’s up from the 160% recorded April 1st and it is a new record .  The Upper Fraser’s  May 1st snowpack is 143% of normal, up from the 139% noted April 1st.  That Upper Fraser mark is tied with the record snowpack  of 1953.

The good news on the Nechako says Chapman is that "With the  release of water from the Alcan reservoir,  it is not expected that there will be a flood on the Nechako, however, the weather could change all that."

Chapman says there are really two extreme scenarios for the province.

1. That May and June would continue to be cool allowing for a slow melt. The Fraser would run high, but there wouldn’t be any flooding.
2. Other end of the scale,  high temps for mid May  meaning a rapid melt, and a flood scenario that would be similar to the  flood of 1948 in  the lower mainland.

Chapman says the reality will likely be somewhere in the middle, and his team is trying to develop flow projections.  "There is a pot of water on the stove that is nearly boiling" says Chapman "all it needs is a little more heat."    Chapman says  we have several  weeks of  concern ahead of us "We are just at the  very beginning of this, and  this low level flooding will take place for the next two months."

 “We have been watching closely since January of this year when the snowpack started climbing” says the Solicitor General John Les  “ I think it is fair to say we have acted sooner than ever before, and we have taken more action than ever before in preparation of the flood season.”

That early preparation has already paid off in Houston.  The briefing advised that the Bulkley River started to spill over its banks last night and 5 forest fire fighting crews went on scene to help with extra sand bagging. 

The Federal government yesterday paid for half of the nearly $33 million dollars in flood preparations already paid for by the Province of B.C.  Les  is  grateful, but says there is more to be done “This is  a great first step  as we look to work towards long term mitigation of flood threats in B.C.”

More than 3.5 million sandbags have already been delivered to communities throughout the province.

Forest fire fighters are being  trained on sandbagging,  dams throughout the province are being inspected to ensure they can handle the increased flow, rip-rap is being stock piled, mining operations have been given extra time to  operate to blast and produce  more  rip rap, and  more than $30 million dollars in  dike repairs and bank upgrading have been done.

This morning, the Fraser River at South Fort was at 6.85 meters, up from about 6.45 meters yesterday.

In Vanderhoof, the Nechako was at 4.182 meters, up  from yesterday’s mark of about 4.12 meters.

The Solicitor General wrapped up his presentation saying “Governments and agencies can only do so much, each of us as British Columbians have a responsibility to ensure our families are safe” 

Information on how to prepare yourself or your family, can be found at www.pep.bc.ca

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