British Columbia

I am still sometimes caught out by the differences that I find living in a new land. Mostly such surprises are positive, but in times of stress and difficulty they may be less so.

When it comes to sudden and excessive rainfall (and any concomitant flooding and damage) you might think that a native of Great Britain would be pretty much inured to any eventuality. We are all too familiar with the possible outcomes and take such things in our stride. Further,  Canada is a huge country which is full of outsized natural features. There is a sense of solidity that suggests that the land (and its people) can handle anything that is thrown at it. Looks can sometimes be deceptive.

I was taken aback by just how quickly and easily Vancouver and other parts of BC were sundered from the remainder of the country by the Atmospheric River in which we have of late bathed. Other implications did not register at all.

When I set off for College last Wednesday – after the rains had ceased – I idly noted that I would need to get some petrol (gas) on the way home. As I drove down the peninsula on the Pat Bay Highway I found myself wondering why there was such a long queue of cars on the opposite carriageway tailing back from the first gas station there. Following a comedy cartoon moment the truth landed like a lead balloon. They were panic buying!

Sure enough it rapidly became clear that the only gas stations not to be inundated by desperate motorists were those that had already run out of gas. It turns out that all of Victoria’s petrol arrives by tanker down the Trans Canada Highway from the direction of Nanaimo – or it did until half of the Malahat Drive was washed away. I was forced to call upon The Girl to meet me after my class and to bring me the jerry can that we keep full of gas for our lawn mower, so that I could make it safely home.

The next problem was – of course – how to get some more petrol over the next few days. The police quickly started escorting convoys of tankers across the remaining Malahat carriageway after  the road was closed for the evening repairs, so we had to keep an ear to the ground as to where deliveries were being made. One station in Sidney had a delivery but by the time I got there there was already a queue of more than a hundred cars.

I swapped into The Girl’s Mazda to go shopping but as I reached our local grocery store I saw another tanker pulling up at the adjacent station. I scurried back home to get the Lexus and – after a relatively brief wait in the queue – came away with a tankful; the which should last for couple of weeks…

…which is a good thing because gas stations are now rationing gas, limiting motorists to thirty litres on any fill up.

We are hearing reports of shortages of other essential goods and foodstuffs also, though thus far we have not been inconvenienced. The forecasts are for further heavy rains in days to come, however, so we must continue to be on our toes.

Never a dull moment here in the ‘new’ world!

Monday’s post – whilst touching on a serious subject – did so in a manner which might, on reflection, seem to some to be a little on the flippant side.

When I wrote that post I had certainly been looking at some of the images from the interior of BC and checking in on the news coverage – but there had at that stage been no reports of injuries and certain none of fatalities.

A day and more later the situation is slowly becoming clearer and the extent of the flooding and damage to property and to the transport infrastructure is becoming more apparent.

There have also – of course – now been the first reports of fatalities and of missing persons. The tone of this post is accordingly considerably more sombre and our thoughts and best wishes go out to those affected.

British Columbia has come in for yet another climate related battering. Mud slides and washouts on major routes have effectively shut Vancouver off from anywhere further east in Canada. We watched the news reports come in as each of the major routes was cut one by one. Some of the damage is significant and will take many months to repair.

The lower Fraser valley at Abbotsford is badly flooded and there have been many evacuations in that area. On Monday the entire town of Merritt was evacuated as the flood waters rose. Those who are familiar with Merritt will understand entirely how this happened. Merritt lies in a bowl surrounded by mountains and the runoff from two days of rain had nowhere else to go.

Victoria was cut off from the rest of Vancouver Island on Monday as the Highway 1 route over the Malahat mountain was flooded. A single lane has since been reopened but it will take a week of night-time closures for the damage to the formation to be repaired sufficient to re-open the whole road.

We are blessed here on the peninsula. There had been no shortage of surface water in our neck of the woods (it runs off Mount Newton behind us) but the water cascades down the slopes in all directions and into the sea – so within 24 hours most local routes were once again navigable.

For these small mercies we are infinitely grateful.