Flood Meeting this Evening In Vanderhoof

By 250 News

Residents of Vanderhoof are once again being asked to attend a meeting to  hear the latest information on possible flooding.  This meeting   will take place  this evening at the  high school  in Vanderhoof at 7 p.m.

Yesterday, District of Vanderhoof  officials got some good news, the  Nautley River seems to have crested and is expected to slow its input into the Nechako.  There is also some good news in that the amount of water  flowing into the Kenney Dam is slowing somewhat.

"The goods news is the nights have been cold, so that has help slow  the thaw" says Vanderhoof Mayor Len Fox "But it has been so cool in the past  week, that the rain we had ended up  as snow  at the Nautley headwaters."

Fox says  the meeting tonight is being called by the Vanderhoof Council.  "We have  done a g.p.s survey of all properties, and we  are working on several models of flow levels,  so once that work is done we will be able to show people what will happen  at what level (of water)."  Fox says previous situations in ’76 and in 1997, have  shown what will happen if the  flow reaches 650cms or 700 cms and unlike those years, they know they will have  about 5 days to  prepare for a flood this time around.

What is critical is the flow of water into the Kenney Dam.  Alcan  has not increased its released from the targeted 450 - 500 cms, but should the  water flowing into the dam increase, it will have to  increase that release through the Skins Lake Spillway.

This evening,  there will be an update from Alcan,  the Provincial Emergency Program Rep (Vanderhoof Fire Chief) and from the DIstrict of Vanderhoof's Paul  Hascarl who is the  Public Works Superintendent.

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