More melting keeps region anxious

With warmer temperatures melting the snow and precipitation moving in, officials in Terrace and area are keeping a watchful eye on the flow of the Skeena, Nass and Bulkley Rivers. While they are thankful for the break in sandbagging and pumping that the last few days has provided, they suggest that there could be a round two if things heat up too fast for a fast moving system comes ashore.

The Globe and Mail had a report on the latest concerns and a review of the weekend developments around the northwest. Included in their review was a discussion with Prince Rupert Mayor Herb Pond, who expanded on the situation faced by Prince Rupert this weekend and how things are progressing as the week goes on.


FLOOD WATCH
Melting snow threatens temporary calm
Problem could be only half over, officials warn, as one mayor considers building permanent dikes
LAURA DRAKE
With a report from from Armina Ligaya
June 12, 2007

VANCOUVER -- The Skeena and Nass Rivers may rise significantly once again because half of the snow pack that caused record floods earlier this month has yet to melt, officials said yesterday.

"While flows in these systems are well below their peaks of last week, there is still substantial snow remaining in these watersheds and potential to get another high flow depending on weather," said Tony Cheong, manager of forecasting and information with the River Forecast Centre.

In fact, after dropping several metres from their peaks, both rivers did rise again over Sunday night by about 30 centimetres due to snow melt and some rainfall, Mr. Cheong said. A substantial hot spell of two or three days, similar to what produced the peak flow of last week, would cause the rivers to rise substantially. However, Mr. Cheong could not predict if the rivers would once again rise to flood stage.

There is not enough snow left in the mountains above the Fraser River to cause it to peak from snow melt, Mr. Cheong said. However, a large amount of rain could cause the river to rise again depending on when and where it fell. A widespread boil-water advisory has been issued for northwestern British Columbia while residents brace for a second wave of flooding with a new round of evacuation alerts, The Canadian Press reported last night.

The Northern Health Authority says the precautionary boil-water order applies to people affected by floods over the past week.

The Provincial Emergency Program says the newest evacuation alert covers about 500 homes in the Francois Lake area south of Burns Lake.

They join the more than 1,000 homes remaining on evacuation alert and 60 under an evacuation order. However, provincial emergency program director Jim Whyte said he expects those numbers to drop soon.

"At this time, our energies are shifting from response to the flood incident towards community and family recovery as the flood waters drop," Mr. Whyte said.

Family recovery involves getting people back into their homes and ensuring they are livable. Community recovery, Mr. Whyte said, is a much larger undertaking regarding the state of roads, and water and sewer systems in the towns affected by the floods.

Terrace Mayor Jack Talstra said he would like to receive financial help from the provincial and federal government to build five kilometres of permanent dikes around his town. Mr. Talstra, who has lived in Terrace for 50 years, said he's never seen a flood this bad and is concerned about the increasing frequency of flooding.

"In the last eight years or so we've had three floods. This time and every time there's erosion and houses that 40 years ago were far away from the river are very close to the river today," he said.

"We do not have much arable land of high quality but we do have 1,000 acres or so and it keeps eroding. I don't know what global warming is going to do in the future, but we don't want to lose this."

Premier Gordon Campbell has yet to tour the flood-affected regions. He said yesterday he avoided the areas so as not to get in the way.

"I want people to focus on keeping people as safe as possible, not on taking care of the Premier to be quite blunt about it," Mr. Campbell said in Vancouver yesterday.

"Certainly my heart goes out to all those that were directly impacted, but I think local governments, the provincial governments, did a pretty good job of dealing with a tough situation."

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FLOOD HASN'T DAMPENED PRINCE RUPERT'S SPIRITS

Although recent flooding has cut Prince Rupert off from the rest of the province, leaving it short on gas for cars and homes, the city's mayor said yesterday it's nothing his city can't handle.

"Well, we're pretty resourceful, we've been without natural gas in the middle of winter for extended periods so facing this situation in the summer it's at best an inconvenience," Herb Pond said.

"People will find other ways of getting things done."

The Pacific Northern Gas line to the city, which runs under the flooded Skeena River, broke Saturday. While city buildings and schools have turned their gas off, homes and businesses are running off the residual gas in the lines.

"We're preaching to our residential customers and the restaurants and hotels in the Prince Rupert area to conserve gas as much as we can, but at this point we really can't say how long it will last," PNG spokesman Tom Leach said yesterday.

Mr. Leach said the break is in a remote area, but crews are on their way to fix the line.
"Mother Nature is co-operating at this point, it's overcast but it's not raining, the river levels are staying relatively stable at this point so things are going according to plan," Mr. Leach said.

Prince Rupert is also experiencing a gasoline shortage, but a barge from Vancouver arriving this morning should alleviate that "just in time," Mr. Pond said. Having Highway 16, which had been closed due to a mudslide, partly opened between Prince Rupert and Terrace, has allowed a few trucks in, but the barge will be crucial.

"We can bring in smaller quantities but we really need the barge to get properly resupplied," Mr. Pond said. He estimated that things should be back to normal by noon today, assuming the weather co-operates.

The mayor added that the city's isolation from the rest of the province due to the floods is an event unmatched in magnitude as far as he can remember.

"Through this whole incident we have maintained full functionality of all our emergency response services - police, fire, the hospital. It all took some pretty heavy lifting by a whole bunch of people behind the scenes, but the show goes on."