Hey everyone. I was just paying attention to whats been going on in southern Alberta with the massive flooding and evacuations that happened. I am also hearing about power outages, and stores being sold out of bottled water. It's a big problem for those who were not prepared. But now Im looking at the fraser valley, and Im wondering, could that happen here? Now I know that the land here is much better suited to handle lots of rain. We get it all the time. But I also remember two years ago I think? the Fraser river was so high that they actually evacuated small communities in both Langley, and Poco I think because the river was dangerously high. Anybody else remember? Im also thinking about all the dams we got in stave and stuff. So do you think we could face a similar threat here? How will this affect your prepping? Thoughts please.
I think this could easily happen. If we take a look on any map and look at where the populous resides. Always near the water for obvious reasons. Take a look at the river systems and what lines the shores and how much. Even when you get into the back country everything is built around the water system either lakes, rivers, creeks and so on. If everything rose from its original high and low and just went to high, I think it would be fairly catastrophic in general. I think the landscape of the province could also give us a larger problem. We wont just fill up like a puddle getting deeper and broader and the geography might force a different path here and there. The Fraser River takes 25% of BC's rainfall if I remember my facts correctly.
I have since increased my holding water capacity. I am not in a low lying area and I am on a well which is good however I need to be conserned with power outages and slides which will become another factor here in or province in a alot of locations.
Terrible no matter what way you slice it.
Whatever tomorrow brings,… I will be there! 😉
There was a huge flood in I think it was 1948, which lead to the construction of the dyke system from what I have heard. Most of Poco (where I grew up) is all flood plain, as well as Fort langley. All those low lying places would be washed away if there was ever a failure. I drove thru Fort lang along river rd last year during the flooding, people yards were under so much water, Its amazing how much water is being held back by those dykes.
On an interesting note, they (the people who constructed the dykes) used what ever they could as fill. In the derby reach area East of fort Langley you can see lots of stacked crushed cars covered in gravel as fill. mostly 50's and earlier.
With a forecasted I metre rise in the ocean levels within 30 years, and storm surges , watershed deforestation and erosion up in the interior that sends water down the major rivers faster, and increasing rain in our wet seasons also predicted with climate change , I would be wary of location and the dykes. I know those dykes are engineered for a 8.2 earthquake , not a 9.0 because in their urban planning they calculate cost vs. risk and come up with a measure they put in place that is not built to ultimately withstand the worse case scenario but will protect against the probable case . I can only imagine the same principals apply to building bridges for high winds and dykes to withstand high tides and spring flooding water levels etc.
It does not affect me but hmm displaced populations of Delta and Richmond and Chilliwack might ? Always low lying portions of the Fraser communities like Glen valley are at some level of risk , as are watersheds like up in the Hatzic Lake area .
I was looking at the MLS listings at properties on the Sunshine coast and later came across some write up about the natives traditional use of the area of Roberts creek where I liked a particular property with creek frontage and it said the natives used it as a boundary between settlements and did not choose to live there due to the high number of converging creeks from watersheds , and I thought to myself, hmm, I might learn a thing or two and pay attention to that traditional wisdom .