The Written Word: June 7th
By Rafe Mair
So the floods have come and will get worse, perhaps devastating and no one’s to blame. In a marvelous case Alphonse and Gaston neither senior government is at fault. This, remember, wasn’t a sudden thing like the forest fires a few summers ago – this catastrophe was anticipated by reams of newspaper articles and extensive TV coverage.
Floods are no fun. In 1972 and 1974 I lived on the Thompson River in Kamloops and saw the water creeping over the dike that protected us. We survived because of round the clock sandbagging. As a High School lad, in 1948, I worked out in Pitt Meadows sandbagging as the water carried houses, barns and dead cows past us. My memory of these three floods is of a relentless movement of water unstoppable except by huge human effort and good luck.
There are three levels of government involved – municipal, Provincial and Federal and the fact we’re having floods is mute but powerful evidence that governments failed. Indeed the present last minute efforts to sandbag could have been done at leisure at any time during the past several years.
The line of governments is, of course, that this is no time to be bickering – we must throw all effort into holding back the waters. I don’t quarrel with that nor would I expect others to. But this flood, like all things, will fade away. Back in the 60s, W.A.C. Bennett prompted this remark from then NDP leader the late Bob Strachan. “Bennett puts a stone in your shoe and when the pain becomes unbearable he removes it and you’re so grateful you forget how it got there in the first place”
When this flood is over are we going to be similarly forgetful?
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Posted by: owl on June 7 2007 10:57 AM
Just look at any infrastructure maintenance or development.
During times of rapid new development in municipalities:
1. Planning - get subdivisions approved no matter what so as to be seen as "being open for business". No time to put proper procedures in place when we discover that some are still lacking.
2. Roads - build new infrastructure to service new construction. No time/money to fix existing ones since prices are high and better to wait till companies not as busy and have dropped prices.
During times of slower than average growth, or even recession:
1. Planning - no money; staff laid off; fewer consultants hired; cannot afford frivolous things such as improving processes for the better financial times to come again.
2. Roads - same thing; cannot afford the money; cannot raise taxes; people feeling the pinch; people will accept poorer roads because they know everyone is hurting.
Look at the Sea to Sky highway. Should have been improved a long time ago, a piece at a time - washouts caused such improvements in the past - deaths on a killer highway dod little to improve design standards. The Olympics is the catalyst to do something which needed doing. Everyone blames the Olympics. The real culprit is Whistler and the success of that as a tourist destination and playground for the Pacific Northwest. It was never properly serviced as it grew.
How about the rapid tranist link with YVR? same thing. 2 weeks of Olympics is what gave it a push to complete. It is, in fact, a transportation link which needed to take place in a rapidly growing urban agglomeration which, other than downtown Vancouver, is Sprawlsville.
So, how we deal with flood control is simply how we deal with much of public planning and infrastructure development.