We've recently been experiencing, what I think Noah's ark was intended for, here in Vancouver. It just seems that there's no end in sight and I really don't think the people of Vancouver can handle anymore rain. Some rivers have overflowed, residents have been evacuated, trees have blown down, and now we have to boil our water. What else could go wrong?
Vancouver Residents Told to Boil Water in Wake of Brutal Storm on B.C. Coast
By GREG JOYCE
VANCOUVER (CP) - The entire Greater Vancouver area was put under a boil-water advisory Thursday after the brutal storm that slammed into the B.C. coast a day earlier left the tapwater looking like weak tea.
The storm stirred up the three local water reservoirs and overwhelmed the treatment system, which serves more than two million people in Canada's third-largest urban area. The local medical health officer advised that tapwater not be used even for washing vegetables.
"It's precautionary because we have no evidence of contamination or illness from the water," Dr. Patricia Daly, medical health officer for Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, told a news conference.
"We know that with turbidity levels this high there is an increased risk of gastrointestinal illness. So people need to be aware of that, although it's their choice.
"If I'm asked, I'm telling the public: Don't drink the water from the tap at this time. Drink bottled water or boil your water for a full minute."
But Daly said the advisory is an order for the vulnerable members of the community.
"What we're telling our hospitals, our residential care facilities, our schools, our daycares, is identical to what we would do in a boil water advisory," she said. "We are telling them that they must supply their patients, their children with bottled water or boiled water. We are not giving them an option."
The advisory left some Vancouverites searching for their afternoon caffeine fix. For a while at least one downtown Starbucks location was not even serving hot coffee because of the water.
Darren Beatty, a produce clerk at a downtown grocery store, said taps and automated sprayers were turned off and the ice normally set out to cool vegetables wasn't being used.
"There's going to be a limit to how long we can go on, we're probably going to have to take more stuff down and keep it cool overnight," Beatty said.
"We've just heard of this so we're just trying to make up some problem-solving solutions and try to get past this any way we can."
Beatty said he saw signs of problems Wednesday night.
"I could tell something was going on because I went to get a drink downstairs at the produce cooler and the water was really murky, really kind of muddy looking."
Johnny Carline of the Greater Vancouver Regional District said the high turbidity rates were primarily in two of the three reservoirs nestled in the mountains above North Vancouver. The reservoirs supply most of the drinking water to the large urban area.
Meanwhile, B.C. Hydro, city crews and telephone workers were all in overdrive to repair and cleanup damage left by the awesome display of weather on the southwest coast and Vancouver Island a day earlier.
Hydro spokeswoman Elisha Moreno said every available worker had been called in to help restore electrical service.
About 500 repair crews fanned out across the Lower Mainland, Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island to work on downed power lines that had left more than 200,000 people in the dark. By midday the number had been reduced to 125,000 and she said most of those would be repaired by day's end.
"We recruited the full roster," she said. "Everyone able to work is out."
The storm had cut road links to several towns with floods, toppled trees and power lines, or mudslides, but those areas were accessible by Thursday.
The latest downpour put the monthly rainfall for November at 236.8 mm at Vancouver International Airport, still shy of the 1983 record of 350.8 mm but with half the month left to go.
Television networks continued to play footage of people struggling to stay upright. In areas almost too numerous to count, there were dramatic shots of trees that had crashed down on homes, power lines and roads, isolating for a time some communities and leaving people without light, power and - for some - a home.
The power outage also forced the closure Thursday of dozens of schools.
Less than two weeks after an earlier storm walloped the region, causing rivers to flood and forcing evacuations, the latest wild weather front barged in Wednesday with winds of more than 100 kilometres an hour, accompanied by as much as 100 millimetres of rain.
If there were an award for the unluckiest recipient of bad weather, Chilliwack resident Richard Ulm might qualify. His log home was flooded by the overflowing Chilliwack River 10 days ago. A tree toppled on his roof Wednesday, making his home unliveable.
"I'm displaced," he said. "The flood has left me in limbo land."
Among the hardest hit areas were Port Alberni and West Vancouver, where emergency shelters were set up for people who had fled their homes due to flooding or tree damage.
B.C. Ferries cancelled many of its sailings on Wednesday because of rough seas but schedules were back to normal Thursday.
Telus spokesman Shawn Hall said access to Port Alberni, on Vancouver Island, had been restored, along with an area in the Okanagan near Penticton and some isolated spots near Abbotsford.
Telus was at the mercy of B.C. Hydro since the power outages left people without telephone service once the system's batteries wear down. Telus crews were able to reach affected areas Thursday to recharge the batteries.
Port Alberni Mayor Ken McRae said he was relived that Hydro crews could reach the town, which had been cut off with road closures in both directions.
"As far as damage is concerned we're just sort of surveying. I think most of the damage is just flooded basements."
More rain has been forecast for many areas of southwestern B.C. through the coming weekend - including the possibility of another intense storm.
Environment Canada spokesman Jim Steele said residents will have to brace for another rough weekend.
"We're watching the system for Sunday right now and it looks like a fairly intense storm bringing more rain and wind," said Steele.
As if the damage already inflicted wasn't enough there was a dire warning for a group concerned about catastrophic, potential flooding.
Steve Litke of the Fraser River Basin said dikes in communities of the lower Fraser River wouldn't hold up if warm spring temperatures quickly melted a major snowpack.
Litke said massive flooding could replicate conditions after the worst flood on record, in 1894.
About 250 kilometres of the dikes were reconstructed by the federal and provincial Fraser River flood control program between 1968 and 1994.
While there's insufficient information about the effects of the flood over a century ago, another flood in 1948 was also destructive, wiping out 2,300 homes in the lower Fraser River, Litke said.
Source: Canadian Press
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