North Vancouver residents are cleaning up after a devastating storm brought record-breaking rainfall to the area this weekend, overwhelming their stormwater system and causing significant flooding across the district.
Long-time Lynn Valley resident James Hustvedt said the situation felt eerily familiar to the catastrophic localized flash flood that struck the area a decade ago.
Hustvedt was among several homeowners impacted by the flood on Saturday. He said water swept through his property on Fromme Road, breaching his fence and flooding his home’s crawl space.
“[There was] probably about a foot-and-a-half of water in the driveway. I don’t know what it’s gonna end up costing here.”
Hustvedt said it felt like a replay of the November 2014 floods, when debris blocked a culvert near his home and caused severe flooding.
Dozens of other houses and businesses also suffered water damage at the time, and 20 homes in Lynn Valley had to be evacuated. Argyle Secondary School was also temporarily closed.
“It’s unbelievable it happened again,” Hustvedt said, expressing frustration that despite the extensive flood control projects initiated after the 2014 event, the district’s infrastructure had once again failed to withstand the storm.
Multi-million investment falls short
After the 2014 floods, a disaster-mitigation project was launched with funding from the federal, provincial and district governments. The more than $2.5-million investment covered a series of improvements aimed at protecting vulnerable areas like Lynn Valley and Deep Cove.
Projects included culvert replacements, debris basin upgrades, and inlet protection along major waterways, such as Kilmer and Gallant creeks.
District Coun. Jordan Back said some upgrades to culverts have been done and buried creeks have been opened up since then.
“We’ve invested a lot in infrastructure to try and prepare ourselves for similar events going forward,” he told CBC News.
However, despite those upgrades, Saturday’s storm proved too much for the system to handle.
“We’re not at a stage right now where we can say what worked and what didn’t work yesterday, but we certainly will be in the weeks ahead,” Back said.
The councillor acknowledged that while upgrades have been made to existing infrastructures, much more work is needed as storms grow more frequent and intense.
“Climate change is upon us, and there’s no more clear example than what we saw yesterday.”
Several dozen homes and businesses were flooded on the North Shore when an atmospheric river hit B.C. on Saturday. Officials say the rainfall caused numerous rivers to overflow their banks and stream through the community. Sohrab Sandhu has the details.
Unprecedented rain overwhelms North Shore
On Gallant Avenue in Deep Cove, another hard-hit area, businesses scrambled to protect their properties as water surged down the street. Sandbags were quickly placed at doorways, said Sydnie Alcock, a kitchen staff member at Café Orso, who described it as an “eventful shift.”
“You would have thought there would be a better drainage system, this was kind of unexpected,” she said.
Residents found themselves navigating streets that had turned into rivers and, in some areas, tactical evacuations were carried out as homes became unsafe.
Social media clips from the area showed water cascading down Gallant Avenue, and similar scenes played out on Fromme Road, where Hastings Creek overflowed.
On Sunday, many local businesses, including Café Orso, resumed normal operations, although Alcock noted that not many customers were coming through.
Gord Howard, director of the North Shore Emergency Operations Centre, described the rainstorm as a “100-year event,” explaining that the volume of water overwhelmed the stormwater systems in many areas.
Environment Canada figures show new daily rainfall records were set across the Lower Mainland, including West Vancouver, which received about 190 millimetres of rain.
A reception centre was temporarily established at the Mickey McDougall Recreation Centre in North Vancouver to assist individuals displaced by the storm on Saturday night. It has since closed, but residents facing significant challenges due to the storm can still reach the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) at 778-651-9600 for support.
Howard said the centre successfully helped secure accommodations for five individuals who were displaced on Saturday. Others stayed with friends or family, Howard said.
The EOC is still surveying the damage, but estimates that several dozen properties on Vancouver’s North Shore have been affected by the flooding. No injuries have been reported so far.
Howard said crews are busy clearing culverts and catch basins as heavy rainfall continues to hammer the community.
“We’re hopeful that the rain is not reaching the peak levels that it did yesterday,” he said.
The B.C. River Forecast Centre says current weather forecasts and modelling are indicating ongoing flood hazards on the South Coast and in the North Shore mountains.
Streamflow in most areas is not expected to reach the same levels as was experienced on Saturday, however rainfall is forecast to persist on Monday and ongoing high flows and potential overbank flood remains possible, according to the forecast centre.