Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
Canada's East Coast province of Nova Scotia began cleaning up on Sunday after torrential rainfall caused devastating floods, while the search continued for four people including two children who went missing during the deluge. The storm, which started on Friday, in some places dumped more than 25 cm (10 inches) in just 24 hours - as much as normally falls in three months. CBC meteorologist Ryan Snoddon said it was the most rain to hit the provincial capital Halifax since Hurricane Beth in 1971.
As glaciers melt and pour massive amounts of water into nearby lakes, 15 million people across the globe live under the threat of a sudden and deadly outburst flood, a new study finds. More than half of those living in the shadow of the disaster called glacial lake outburst floods are in just four countries: India, Pakistan, Peru and China, according to a study in Tuesday’s Nature Communications. A second study, awaiting publication in a peer-reviewed journal, catalogs more than 150 glacial flood outbursts in history and recent times.
Nearly a year ago, flood waters inundated swaths of south-western British Columbia. Mudslides destroyed sections of highways and swollen, turbid rivers washed away houses and bridges. Now, the region has the opposite problem: months of drought have begun to take a toll on what was once dubbed Canada’s “wet coast”. And as unpredictable weather events become a hallmark of a changing climate, experts warn that the two events are linked – and that a culture of overconsumption and poor resource management threaten to further amplify the effects of the current crisis.
The past couple of years has shown us that extreme weather events — from devastating floods to extreme heat — are becoming the norm. But even in light of this and amidst a summer of sun and storms, many Canadians’ homes aren’t protected from the very real threat this kind of now-to-be-expected weather poses. According to Vice President of Claims at TD Insurance, Craig Richardson, a survey of Canadian homeowners conducted by TD Insurance in 2022 revealed that “just over half of Canadians (51%) either don’t have extended water damage coverage or don’t know if they have coverage, yet one in five Canadians have experienced water damage to their homes.”
When Donna Rae moved to Merritt, B.C., from Vancouver, she bought a small retirement home where she figured she'd spend the rest of her life. But late last year, that home became filled with mud, water and debris from the Coldwater River — one of many destroyed during devastating floods in November. Now Rae, 70, says she wishes she'd never moved to the city in B.C.'s southern Interior. "Now I'm wishing I'd stayed at the coast, so I don't have to deal with this," she said.
British Columbia is shifting into repair and recovery mode following devastating floods and landslides caused by record rains that crippled transportation links, deluged agricultural operations and forced the evacuations of thousands of people, says the province's public safety minister. Mike Farnworth said Monday the cleanup and repair work ahead in southern B.C. is massive, but after three weeks of all-out efforts by volunteers, Canadian Forces soldiers and emergency officials to secure dikes, rescue people and animals and salvage properties, the rebuilding job must start.
We start in British Columbia, where more heavy rainfall is expected this week and flooding shows no signs of abating. Floodwaters in the hard-hit community of Abbotsford are rising again as the Nooksack River south of the border overflows. Farmers in the region continue to assess the damage to their operations. As the Canadian Press reports, blueberry farmer David Gill says the devastating floods have set famers back by “at least a decade” and it will take them years to recover. Thousands of livestock were killed in the floods and fields across the Fraser Valley are still flooded with contaminated water. As CBC News reports, experts say it will be weeks before farmers know how the contaminated waters have affected the region’s fertile farmland.
Four massive water pumps working to keep a low-lying community in British Columbia from devastating floods is shining a light on a larger, Canada-wide issue. Experts say infrastructure across the Canada was not built to withstand the impacts of climate change and the increasing severity of extreme weather events. On Wednesday, Mayor of Abbotsford, B.C. Henry Braun told a news conference that the Barrowtown Pump Station which is struggling to keep Sumas Prairie from completely flooding was working at “maximum capacity.”
British Columbia has begun the mammoth task of assessing damage to its transportation networks, infrastructure and thousands of properties along the southern part of the province in the wake of devastating floods. The province also expects the death toll to rise. Thousands of people remain out of their homes and thousands of farm animals and livestock were also imperilled as waters washed away homes and left farms under metres of water as the province declared a state of emergency on Wednesday.
