More BC flood alerts
Posted May 7, 2018 5:35 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER – More flood alerts have been issued in British Columbia as rivers and creeks surge with melting snow, but the province’s river monitoring agency is not predicting the same level of flooding as last year.
The River Forecast Centre has upgraded flood watches and high streamflow advisories for several waterways, including Mission Creek near Kelowna, the Similkameen River in the southern Interior, the West Kettle and Granby rivers and their tributaries in the Boundary region and for the Bulkley River.
Flood warnings are also maintained for the Nazko and West Road rivers in the Cariboo region west of Quesnel where about 120 properties have been on evacuation order for more than a week.
“I don’t think [the flooding] is quite as dire as some of the worst case scenario modeling is showing. I think it’s significant in areas that it is, but I think it’s a kind of more moderate flooding outlook at this point,” centre head David Campbell said.
Cool, wet weather for the first few weeks of April led to more snow on the mountains, and an average snowpack that is 168 per cent of normal levels. However, with warm, wet weather in the forecast for the rest of the week, there is a significant flooding risk, according to the centre.
“We’ve been melting a lot of the mid-elevation snow for about the last 10 days. We’re seeing the melt happening in the upper elevations,” Campbell said. ” A lot of that melt has been very rapid with very warm weather and has been causing a number of flood issues around the province.”
Flood watches remain posted across the central Interior for the Bonaparte River, Baker Creek, Nicola River, Guichon Creek, Coldwater River and tributaries around Cache Creek, Merritt, Williams Lake, and Quesnel.
Currently, there are 17 states of local emergency, 21 evacuation orders affecting 187 homes and 22 evacuation alerts affecting 558 homes.
Highway 8 west of Merritt has been closed by flooding at 10 Mile Bridge and highway officials say the water continues to rise at that location.
EmergencyInfoBC, the online service that is active during provincial emergencies, says evacuation orders or alerts are in place in six regional districts and for one Merritt-area First Nation.
