A catastrophic year in B.C. just got worse

British Columbia has never felt more isolated from the rest of Canada than it does now.

The impact of historic flooding that has killed one person (with more fatalities expected) and thousands of animals, and washed out vital roadways to the rest of the country, is still beyond imaginable. Some are bracing for things to get worse before they get better.

The effects of a warming planet are playing out in real time in B.C. And they have been felt particularly acutely this year.

Record temperatures in the summer included a multiday “heat dome” that killed nearly 600 people. Hundreds of fires put entire towns on evacuation alert. In late June, the town of Lytton set the record for the hottest temperature in the country at 49.6 degrees. A day later the entire town was razed by wildfire.

More recently, a rare tornado cone was spotted hovering over the waters near the University of British Columbia. All this, while dealing with a once-in-a-100-year pandemic and an opioid crisis that is killing thousands every year. In 2021 there have been three states of emergencies declared in B.C.: one for the fires, another for COVID-19 and, on Wednesday, one for the floods.

This in a province that has been warned for decades it should prepare for a massive earthquake at any time.

Can you say 10 plagues of Egypt?

It’s a particularly odd feeling to feel so cut off from the rest of Canada. Sure, planes are still flying to points eastward if you can get to the airport. But if you want to drive the familiar routes out of the Lower Mainland and hop on the Trans-Canada, you can’t. All major routes out of the Fraser Valley are closed. (Six different highways have been shut.) And no one is quite sure how long it will be before people will be able to use them again.

FLOOD WATCHES AND WARNINGS IN FRASER VALLEY

Flood watch

Yukon

NWT

Flood warning

Closed highways

Alta.

B.C.

Spences Bridge

DETAIL

Merritt

Lillooet

Lytton

Abbotsford

Issued evacuation order

Agassiz

Vancouver

CANADA

U.S.

Highway 1:

Closed due to damage

Victoria

0

40

KM

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: GRAPHIC NEWS;

openstreetmap contributors

FLOOD WATCHES AND WARNINGS IN FRASER VALLEY

Flood watch

Yukon

NWT

Flood warning

Closed highways

Alta.

B.C.

Spences Bridge

DETAIL

Merritt

Lillooet

Lytton

Abbotsford

Issued evacuation order

Vancouver

Agassiz

CANADA

U.S.

Highway 1:

Closed due to damage

Victoria

0

40

KM

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: GRAPHIC NEWS;

openstreetmap contributors

FLOOD WATCHES AND WARNINGS IN FRASER VALLEY

Flood watch

Yukon

NWT

Flood warning

BRITISH

COLUMBIA

Closed highways

Alta.

B.C.

Spences Bridge

DETAIL

Merritt

Lillooet

Lytton

Abbotsford

Issued evacuation order

Vancouver

Island

Agassiz

Vancouver

CANADA

U.S.

Highway 1:

Closed due to damage

Victoria

0

40

KM

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: GRAPHIC NEWS; openstreetmap contributors

Aside from any psychological fallout there might be from feeling trapped and isolated, there are other real-world implications resulting from the devastation. The floods are disrupting supply chains. Shelves in food stores in the interior of the province are already being emptied. Goods that would normally be leaving the Port of Vancouver headed to Alberta and points east are going nowhere. A large percentage of the province’s dairy and poultry production has been lost.

There will be more empty shelves.

The response of the provincial government is under scrutiny. The torrents arrived, as most predicted, on Sunday. By Monday, the “atmospheric river” fuelling the deluge was creating havoc and threatening lives throughout the southern portion of the province. But a state of emergency wasn’t called by the government until Wednesday afternoon.

Most local communities were left on their own to issue evacuation notices and draw up plans to battle flooding. The provincial “alert ready” system wasn’t used to warn people not to travel or to avoid certain areas. British Columbians didn’t get the same cautions people in Washington State did about the imminent danger that the rains posed.

First fire, now floods: Why B.C. is trapped in a world of climate extremes

Surrey woman swept away by B.C. mudslide waited hours on car for rescuers

You would have thought the B.C. government would have learned from the heat dome debacle, where it failed to issue proper warnings about the immediate threat the rare weather phenomenon posed to people’s health, especially seniors living alone.

“What we are seeing is a natural disaster,” Mike Farnworth, B.C.’s Minister of Public Safety, said this week. It was almost like he was saying: These things happen and are unpredictable.

B.C.’s alert system is a tragic failure. There needs to be an inquiry into why the provincial government was again so slow off the mark when it came to sounding the alarm about the potential for peril.

There is a lot to be angry about, a lot to mourn. People have lost everything, including, in some cases, loved ones. It will take months, maybe years, for bridges and roadways to be repaired and fortified. Residents here have no idea what the next disaster will look like.

It seems now that people in B.C. are conditioned to expect something. It’s as if the entire province is always looking over its shoulder. Lotusland seems like a quaint and not particularly apt moniker now.

If there’s been anything positive to come of all this, it’s the fact we have been reminded of the inherent goodness of people. The random acts of kindness we have witnessed in the past few days have warmed us. There have been tears of sadness, for sure, but there have also been tears spilled over the compassion and benevolence of strangers.

As the people of British Columbia go through this unpredictable time, that will be more important than ever.

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