Williams Lake, B.C., declares state of local emergency, four homes evacuated
Posted September 30, 2023 4:57 pm.
Four homes in a group of duplexes in the City of Williams Lake have been ordered to evacuate and the remaining 76 units are on evacuation alert over concerns about structural integrity.
In a statement Friday evening, the city says it’s declaring a state of local emergency as a “precautionary measure” related to the complex known as Terra Ridge at 500 Wotzke Drive.
The city cited concerns about potential land movement where the complex is situated.
Emergency operations director Evan Dean says the four properties were initially issued “do not occupy” orders on Sept. 15 in response to an engineering report procured by the strata.
He says the report focused on the units’ structural integrity and found that they were not safe to live in.
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This isn’t the first time the area around the complex has been under study for its structural integrity.
Highway 20 at Hodgson Road and Dog Creek Road, which is right beside the complex, is one of several Cariboo Road Recovery Projects currently underway after historic landslides were re-initiated.
In spring 2021, multiple historic landslides were reactivated along Highway 20, close to where it meets Hodgson Road and Dog Creek Road.
Wotzke Drive, where the complex is, stems from Hodgson Road, just off of Highway 20. According to maps by the Cariboo Regional District, the area where the complex sits was identified as a ‘slide area’ in 2015.
Dean says the city will now bring in a geotechnical engineer and get a structural assessment done on all 80 units in the complex.
He says the evacuation alert was put in place so that everyone in the complex would be aware of what is going on and not caught off-guard.
