ABBOTSFORD, BC – Unlike many days in recent weeks, these days there are hardly any people on 2nd Avenue in Abbotsford’s Huntingdon Village.
A wall of green sandbags, built by the military, begins a few feet from where floodwaters had ripped the train tracks into a twisted mess. From there, the wall crosses 2nd Avenue and continues along the tracks for about half a kilometer until it is out of sight.
For more than a week, this was where residents had come, hoping to see the floodwaters recede.
Now, as the water level continues to drop and the last of the predicted atmospheric rivers has passed, your eyes are no longer glued to the sandbags that had represented your last line of defense against the water of the Nooksack River.
Instead, they are looking at the destruction that will be theirs to clean up.
On the other side of the wall, the road is littered with bottles of soda, vitamins, liquor and yogurt washed away from a nearby recycling facility.
The only sound under these gray skies is the wind and the clatter of bottles and cans as Dwayne Forsberg goes to great lengths with a pipe, shovel, or whatever else he can use to keep a sewer clear so the water can drain.
“This time, we were lucky; (the water) travels east, ”says Forsberg, who lives nearby. “Basically, we are at the mercy of the Nooksack.”
As the flooding increased, Forsberg, who works at the recycling plant, saw the water rush past her and had trouble sleeping, wondering if her home would be next.
Wednesday, the first day of December, marked a turning of the page for storm-ravaged southern British Columbia. With the start of the new month, an onslaught of unprecedented rain storms was forecast to end, providing respite from the looming threat of floods and landslides that devastate the homes, livelihoods and even the lives of women. persons.
In the months to come, BC will change the subject from sandbags and rescuing people on fishing boats and helicopters, to a massive and painful clean-up effort.
The full scale of the task ahead is yet to be determined, but officials say repairing damaged infrastructure will be more costly than any disaster in recent memory in BC The personal cost to people whose homes were flooded and whose livestock perished under the Water is another cost that will never be fully accounted for.
What’s known as the end of the storms is that the November rains in British Columbia were deadly and destructive. The bodies of four people were recovered after a landslide on a highway that washed away at least five. About 500 head of cattle and tens of thousands of chickens drowned in the Sumas region of Abbotsford. Several highways that served as key connections between Vancouver and the rest of the country had sections destroyed.
The balance of British Columbia’s storms so far
4
people were killed in a landslide on British Columbia’s Highway 99 during the rain, and one person remains missing.
500
cattle died in the Fraser Valley floods, more likely to be culled after suffering health problems. Tens of thousands of chickens also died.
675,875 liters
of water would have collected in an empty Olympic-size pool in November in southern British Columbia, enough to fill a quarter of the pool.
24
Roads closed in BC during the height of the flood. Repairs to British Columbia’s major roads and bridges will cost billions of dollars and take months to complete.
17,000
people were evacuated from their homes at the height of the floods, which covered 6,900 properties. Many of them will be lost due to the floods.
Billion dollars
it’s the cost of repairing infrastructure in Abbotsford alone, according to the mayor.
3
Sometimes all or part of Mission, British Columbia has been evacuated in 2021, including evacuations for fire and flooding.
45.8 meters
Peak water height in Washington State’s Nooksack River at one point in November. The average height at that point is less than 44 meters. The Nooksack overflow is what caused major flooding in the Sumas area of Abbotsford.
At the height of the floods, 17,000 people were evacuated from 6,900 homes across the province. The work to repair those houses will be long and expensive.
What kinds of repairs will people face?
Jean-Pierre Bardet, a former dean of engineering at the University of Miami with a background in water and civil engineering, says severe flooding can damage home foundations, precipitating widespread structural damage.
“If the slab or foundation is damaged, this could be very, very damaging,” he says. “This would be very expensive to fix and could actually cause all kinds of damage to the structure at the top of the foundation.”
The foundations of houses could be affected by flooding in several ways: through erosion of the soil around them, causing the foundations to collapse, or the accumulation of water that can cause the foundations to swell.
Either way, foundation changes are sure to cause a home’s structure to warp, potentially leaving the entire home uninhabitable.
In general, says Bardet, houses with deeper foundations do better and houses affected by higher floods do worse.
Insurance companies will have to assess damage to flooded homes, for those who have insurance that covers flooding. The Red Cross has distributed $ 5.8 million to British Columbia households affected by the floods, according to British Columbia Minister of Public Safety Mike Farnworth.
There’s also flood water, which can lead to harmful bacteria like e-coli.
“For example, there could be a leak from the contents of the septic tank in the house. Imagine the smell and the public health risks, ”says Bardet. “That cleanup can be substantial and would involve the removal of all places where this contaminated water can penetrate.”
Farmland has also been flooded with water that has potentially been contaminated by trash, bacteria, and household items it was carrying.
Just off the now closed Trans-Canada Highway between Abbotsford and Chilliwack is Nature’s Pickin Market for meat and produce. In the produce section, next to the neatly stacked carrots and celery, the store manager, Bryan Hensley, arranges the vegetables.
At the height of the summer season, up to 70 percent of the produce sold in the market would come from the fields surrounding the busy street it is on.
But now there is fear, Hensley says, as the agricultural industry does not yet know how flood damage could affect next year’s crops. Farmers likely won’t know until they start preparing for the next growing season.
“I feel like many local farmers will not be able to understand the depth of the loss or damage that has occurred until the time comes when they are preparing to see new operations,” he says.
He says the floods were especially harsh due to the blows farmers have already received from COVID-19. Now, they must wait to see the lingering effects of the floods in terms of contamination of the countryside.
Those in the flood zone welcome the government’s relief and assistance talks. But others are still in limbo.
Kelly Jodway has been living in her minivan outside the Abbotsford Tradex Center for two days since her rental home was flooded.
Jodway says she would rather not have a cot inside the Tradex, which is used as an evacuation center, in case someone else needs it. He just walks in to eat or use the facilities, he says, but the water destroyed the rental unit he lived in. He doesn’t know what’s next for him.
However, when it comes to cleaning up the floods, you’re already planning to be on the front lines. Starting at Tradex.
“I will help as much as I can; There are people here who need help, ”says Jodway.
“I will do what i can.”
Reference-www.thestar.com