Mopping up the mess and fixing the pipes

The Daily News on Tuesday provided details on the progress that regional officials are making in the clean up of the flood waters of last week along the Skeena. Of current interest to Prince Rupert will be the status of Highway 16 and the time frame of repairs needed to the Natural Gas Pipeline to the city.

MOP UP, REPAIR CONTINUES FOLLOWING EASING OF FLOOD
PNG hopeful that repairs to gas line will be carried out in coming day or so
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Pages one and three

If the weather continues to co-operate, Pacific Northern Gas believes it can have a temporary gas line in place in the next couple of days, negating any potential loss of service for Prince Rupert.

“Right now, there is sufficient line pack in the line to supply service to residential customers, hotels, restaurants and retail outlets for several days and if the weather conditions hold at the present time the way they are, we should be able to have the line prepared in the next couple of days,” said Tom Leach, coordinator marketing and lands for Pacific Northern Gas.

The area’s only supplier of natural gas has been able to get a crew and equipment into the remote region where the line was broken, about 50 kilometres west of Terrace. The line broke around 3 p. m. on Saturday, leaving Prince Rupert with no road access, no rail access, no remaining vehicle fuel, a ruptured natural gas line and a slow internet connection. The B. C. Hydro line remained unaffected.

“About 50 kilometres west of Prince Rupert where our mainline crosses one of the back channels of the Skeena River, due to the high water over the last several days, it caused our line to break at that point,” said Leach.

“We have since been able to get crews and equipment into the line break site and we are preparing to fix the line as we speak.

“We are going to put a temporary line in place until such time as we can get in there to do a permanent repair. This may take some time, depending on the levels of the Skeena and being in a remote area to get crews and equipment in there to make a permanent repair will take some time and engineering.”

Since Sunday, Highway 16 has reopened, fuel is being brought up the coast by barge and rail service has been restored.

Like PNG, communications company CityWest continues to work on repairing its fibre link to Terrace.

PNG is not the only company to have its fingers crossed that the weather will cooperate.

Tony Cheong, Forecasting and Information Manager of the River Forecast Centre, said there is potential for another significant rise in the Skeena River if there is enough hot weather.

“The last event was precipitated by two days of hot weather,” he said.

“The flood season will not be over until the end of June.”

About 60 per cent of the snow pack remains, however this week’s weather forecast doesn’t look dangerous as it calls for cool weather with light rain.

Jim Whyte, director of the Provincial Emergency Program, said they are now switching their energies from flood response to family recovery and community recovery.

This involves cleaning up homes and helping people return to the flood zones as well as ensuring all services, such as water, sewer, gas and telephone are restored to evacuation areas.

The province is offering up to $300,000 in disaster financial assistance to home owners whose property was damaged as well as flood assistance to local governments with properties damaged in the floods.