Dozens remain in Abbotsford Sumas Prairie area despite evacuation order

There are still about 40 people who have not evacuated their properties in Abbotsford’s Sumas Prairie Wednesday, despite an evacuation order and dire warnings from officials.

In an update Wednesday afternoon, Chief Const Mike Serr, with the Abbotsford Police Department said while the vast majority have left, some “have chosen not to leave that area, which is concerning.”

“We’re still asking anyone in the Sumas Prairie to leave, to follow the evacuation order. I know some people have seen that water is receding in certain areas. But I can tell you that this is still a dynamic situation. We’re still monitoring the river levels very closely. We know that this is not over, and this can change very quickly,” he said.

During a damage assessment of the area with the mayor, Serr said some roads that seemed to have cleared were flooded again just a few hours later.

“This is why we’re asking people to leave,” Serr said.

“[We have seen] vehicles driving on certain roads that just had recently had the water recede. Those roads are not safe yet. They’ve not been cleared by engineers. They’re unstable. And we need to ensure that we do that prior to allowing traffic.”

Meanwhile, thanks to water levels that continued to abate throughout the day, Abbotsford’ss mayor said the city is able to rescind the evacuation order for Huntington Village and the area west of Sumas Way between the U.S. border and just north of Highway 1.

“This is a commercial area, and businesses there should be able to resume operations in the coming days,” Henry Braun said.

The Barrowtown Pumping Station is now fully operational at high speed. Approximately 500,000 gallons per minute go through that pumping station.

“The floodgates have not opened at this time. We can open those once the gate the river level, the Fraser River level drops below the Snowmass river level. And currently, that’s not possible yet. So we’re hoping that over the next 24 to 36 hours that we will see that decrease in the Fraser River,” Braun continued.

Braun explained Tuesday that there was potential the pump station — a critical piece of infrastructure — could fail. He said it could result in water from the Fraser River entering the already flooded area of Abbotsford, only adding to the emergency.

The Huntington US border crossing does remain closed for now.

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The mayor added that crews are still actively looking for the water main break on Sumas Prairie.

The mayor said he wants to thank again the 300 volunteers who came out last night and supported efforts there.

The local state of emergency continues to evolve and the city will keep issuing updates as they become available.

– With files from Lasia Kretzel