Downtown Grand Forks a ‘ghost town,’ as community braces for more flooding

GRAND FORKS (NEWS 1130) – People living in Grand Forks are bracing for “round two,” as a second surge in water levels could bring more flooding to the area in the next 48 hours.

Last Friday, water flooded the streets of downtown Grand Forks. But in the calm before the next literal storm, Robert Linden, who used to work at NEWS 1130, tells us downtown Grand Forks is dry, but a “ghost town.”

“There are emergency workers everywhere, but where you would normally see businesses and the hustle and bustle of what is a quite busy and vibrant downtown core is nothing but sandbags,” he describes.

The damage in the downtown core from last week’s flooding may not be very apparent from the outside, but Linden says the flooding has destroyed priceless items inside local businesses.

“Gem Theatre is the oldest continuously operating motion picture theatre in western Canada. The people who have been running it are moviephiles and they had 50 years worth of memorabilia stored in their basement — all of it has been destroyed. Canisters of film, movie posters that date back to the Charlie Chaplin era, all of those sorts of things have been destroyed. Even with the help of archivists and historians, they wouldn’t be able to repair it.”

He says even though this morning, the city’s downtown core is currently “dry and dusty,” a water level rise of a couple feet in the river will mean a repeat of last week.

“In order to prevent any further flooding in the core — besides all the sandbagging — there’s now what is called a ‘tiger tube’ — a gigantic, yellow tube that’s about 3.5 feet tall, filled with water that completely surrounds the downtown core. They’re hoping that this will prevent the water from flooding into the area.”

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Preparing for ‘Round 2’

Environment Canada has issued special weather statements that cover the entire southeastern corner of BC. As much as 40 millimetres of rain could fall by tomorrow. There are concerns about added damage due to heavy downpours during localized thunderstorms.

“They took all last night, covering up every sewer hole up and down all the streets with plastic sheets and then piles of sandbags on top of them. What happened during the flood of last Friday was the water would bubble up from the sewer system — it would back up… and flood the downtown core. It’s why so many businesses that didn’t have water come in through their front doors were still flooded in their basements. It was coming from the inside because of the back up on the sewer systems.”

People in and around the community have been hard at work, sandbagging or supporting those who were involved with the labour-intensive efforts.

“Around me were mothers with their little pre-school children, helping to pound the sand into the bags. There were people in wheelchairs — and, of course, a ton of able-bodied people — classes from the high school, from the elementary school… coming over in groups and working in shifts, helping to fill sandbags. Among them all, just the citizens of Grand Forks — this small town — has now created over a quarter of a million sandbags.”

The military has been called in to help. Troops are expected to arrive at a staging area in Vernon today, and then be deployed to areas like Grand Forks.

Linden thinks people in the area are feeling more optimistic ahead of the next surge.

“I think that they’re feeling about the fact that they’re far more prepared for any influx of water that could come near the end of this week, than they were when it first came last Friday. There’s probably 10 to 20 times the amount of protection around the buildings and around the downtown core than there was when the first flood hit on Friday of last week.”