Discussions

I feel so sorry what is going on in BC. First covid then wild fires and now the flooding. The lost of lives, homes, towns evacuated and highways cut off. All this so close to Christmas. BC has alot of farms and now the concern for the animals that they got out may run out of feed. The trucking industry will also be hurting because of the mud slides and bridges out in many areas. What a terrible disaster.

Is especially bad since everyone was told to leave last night-specifically the farmers are expected to leave their cattle and chickens. I have not found anything that says how many animals have been evacuated from that area, but there are 45000 dairy cows and 15000 birds in that area. That is a lot of animals to leave behind to drown. Even if it turns out that the pumps do not fail and the lake does not refill -that is cruel to leave the cows without milking for days.  
 
The rest of the flooded areas and ruined roads is a disaster as well. It makes cold, snowy, Manitoba look a whole lot more inviting.

I lived on Sumas Prairie and in Abbotsford for 20 years. Sumas Prairie is actually below sea level in some places. There are probably more like millions of chickens and turkeys that were being grown in single story ground level barns that will have drowned. The dairy cows will be walking in water up to their midlines. The feed companies cant get feed to the safe animals because some roads are under 5 foot of water. Typicallu the reserve feed supply is 4 days but hay and silage stored on ground will be ruined. The drainage ditches are 20 foot deep so the danger of driving off the road is massive.  
There is also a massive uncontrolled fire in an rv and auto storage yard just south of abbotsford. Hundreds of new RV and trucks destroyed as fire rescue cant get there.  
A friend just texted and told me major grocery stores sold out of bread, mik and veggies.  
Be glad we only have a small amount of snow and ice.

really poor planning on the BC governments part, they drain a lake with pumps and they cross their fingers that they don't get a 1 in 100 year storm?!? are you kidding me! The BC government is almost negligent on the damage caused in this area. I am not saying that upper areas and highway wash outs can be avoided but when you drain a lake and try to keep it dry with pumps you would think it would be designed to accommodate more than a 1 in 100 year flood when you talk about the level of damage that was caused.

Lets not forget that Sumas Lake was drained in 1920. Thats over 100 years ago. And it was not drained by the government of the time it was drained by Dutch farmers who moved here from Holland and saw the potential.  
100 years ago things were decided and done different.  
Dont blame the BC government, they did not do it.  
 
The true nature of the problem is in the USA where the Nooksak river has been allowed to silt up due the regulations pertaining to fish habitat. The rains caused the river to overflow the dikes and the only place for the water to go was down hill and down hill is Canada.  
 
If the US river had not breached the dikes Sumas Prairie would not be flooded.  
 
Sumas Prairie has an intricate set of drainage ditches, some more than 20 foot deep that easily can deliver the normal BC water to the pumps and into the Fraser. They were never designed to drain the southern portion of Washington State.  
 
Having lived on the Prairie and driven over the drainage system daily for years in all kinds of weather I can guarantee that if the US hadn't flooded the prairie, there would be no disaster.