Monday’s downpour overwhelmed the city’s drainage systems, causing overflows and flooding across Penticton that affected homes and public infrastructure.
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Heavy rain Monday afternoon in Penticton prompted 86 calls to the Penticton emergency operations center and prompted the evacuation of 16 people from their homes, according to the municipality.
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The damage, and the expected cost to repair it, were still being assessed Tuesday, said Anthony Haddad, who serves as EOC director in addition to his usual duties as general manager of community services.
The 16 evacuees, who belong to a handful of different families, were ordered out after their homes were deemed uninhabitable due to water damage.
Their homes were inspected Monday by one of eight rapid assessment teams formed by the Penticton Fire Department. Those teams were to return to all affected sites on Tuesday to monitor the cleanup.
Haddad said the downpour simply overwhelmed the city’s drainage systems, causing backups and flooding across Penticton that affected homes and public infrastructure.
“Talking to some of our employees who have worked in the city for 20 or 30 years…some of them have never seen this type of event in such a short time,” Haddad said.
“Usually the rain falls over a longer period of time and our stormwater infrastructure can handle that.”
Haddad said the city’s infrastructure “managed to hold up very well” to the onslaught, as did 50 of its employees, who assisted the RCMP and firefighters in the initial response.
The city’s overall response was coordinated by the EOC, which Haddad said was fully staffed and operational within 30 minutes of the start of the rain.
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Haddad said Penticton, which declared a local state of emergency to help expedite its response, appears to be the only community in the southern Okanagan to suffer serious damage in Monday’s deluge.
Doug Lundquist, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said there were “severe thunderstorms” in the Okanagan on Monday and heavy rain, which he called a one-in-10-year event.
Penticton Airport recorded 12.3 millimeters, Oysoyoos had 14.1 millimeters, while Summerland had 15.7 millimeters, and all in just a couple of hours, Lundquist said.
Lundquist said another thunderstorm is coming Thursday that could exacerbate flooding in the Okanagan.
“Flooding could happen Wednesday night or Thursday. We have to get through the next couple of nights with this type of weather and then there’s a big high pressure ridge that sets in, so we’re going to hit the mid to high 30s next week here in the Interior,” he said.
— Filed by Tiffany Crawford
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