B.C. floods a ‘wake up call,’ River Forecast Centre poorly staffed for decade

The agency responsible for warning of potential flooding has been understaffed for over a decade despite recommendations made as climate change worsened years ago.

A report published in 2010 suggests B.C.’s River Forecast Centre wasn’t adequately staffed to handle the extreme weather that resulted in catastrophic floding in parts of the province.

At the time of the report, there were 5.5 employees on board.

Ben Parfitt is a policy analyst and says “For whatever reasons, staffing levels have not changed.”

He says seven more people should be added to the agency, which would effectively more than double its capacity.

Parfitt points out that river forecast centres in Alberta and the Pacific Northwest United States have twice the staff B.C. does despite this province being larger than both areas.

The expert says these past three weeks should serve as a wake-up call for the dramatically increasing challenges the forecast center will face amid climate change.

He adds models the River Forecast Center personnel were using at that time, we’re not sufficient, “And what we have seen unfold over the last three weeks is very, very clear indication that the models that they’re using are not working … They have said that their models weren’t showing anything as severe coming our way. So I think that that’s a real cause for concern.”

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Parfitt says a part of a broader problem is government has either “retreated and/or offloaded responsibilities.” Although he says the past governments are responsible for the lack of response, “this government today bears some responsibility for not acting on those earlier recommendations.”

“We need to get our heads wrapped around the fact that climate change is here. And that it is going to have a profound impact on our river systems. That’s what we’ve seen play out to in such a horrific way with the destruction of highways, communities, utterly devastated sewage treatment plants taken right out of commission, farming operations destroyed.”

In a press conference Wednesday, Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth claimed that since the report in 2010, there have been significant changes to technology and information available.

“River Forecast Center … have incredible individuals who do extraordinary work. And they were absolutely doing their job and alerting communities to the situations on the streamflow and river flow forecasts that we are facing not just in this event, but events that are taking place throughout the year,” he said.