VANCOUVER – Floodwater was spewing from storm drains, shooting out of toilets, and backing up into basements in Port Alberni, B.C. as another powerful pineapple express storm system hit the west coast. Chris Jones woke up Wednesday to find water surrounding his home, a “river” he documented on a video shot in the dark, as his yard and garage sat submerged. But there was one silver lining. “I’m just lucky I don’t have a basement like my neighbours do,” he told CTV News. Not everyone got lucky. Restoration crews could hardly keep up with flooded homes. One crew member was on no sleep after pulling a “chaotic” all-nighter. “We’ve been up all night working through it and so it’s been a lot,” said Sam Irg, a flood technician with Valet Restoration. “It’s mostly tree damage on roofs and right now we’re trying to get all the water out of the basements from backed up pipes.” People also turned to filling up sandbags in case of another surge, with neighbours pitching in to help their family and friends. Steve Adams was among them, noting this sort of thing isn’t exactly unusual in November on Vancouver Island. “I don’t remember too many Remembrance Days that weren’t stormy and wet,” he said. The flooding was part of a series of storms this week hammering B.C.’s south coast with rain and hitting the central interior with winds approaching 100km/h. Environment Canada meteorologist Jennifer Hay said some of the heaviest rain was recorded on the Sunshine Coast and western Vancouver Island. Port Mellon, near Gibsons, recorded 214 millimetres of rain between the morning of Nov. 10 and Nov. 11, while Kennedy Lake on Vancouver Island received 139.4 millimetres. Port Alberni recorded 84.8 millimetres over the same period. “The soils are very saturated. We could see trees come down, landslides and definitely flooding, not just localized flooding, but possibly widespread flooding across a few areas,” Hay said. Flood watches remain in place for much of Vancouver Island and the South Coast. The B.C. River Forecast Centre also issued high streamflow advisories for much of the region on Tuesday. In the Pemberton area, north of Whistler, several homes have been evacuated because of flooding. The storms also knocked out power to close to 500,000 BC Hydro customers. Spokesperson Maria Scott said power had been restored to about 99 per cent of affected customers by Monday, but crews were still working through more complicated outages in the central and northern Interior and on Vancouver Island. Scott said hundreds of spans of power lines had come down in the central Interior, along with dozens of power poles and other electrical infrastructure. About 180 people were on the ground working on restoration, with crews brought in from other parts of the province to help. One particularly challenging area was near Zeballos on Vancouver Island, where Scott said crews were waiting for the weather to improve enough to allow helicopters to survey damage to power lines in remote terrain. Scott said BC Hydro spends about $150 million annually on vegetation management, which includes clearing hazardous and dead trees near its infrastructure. The utility also uses in-house meteorologists to track approaching weather systems and position crews ahead of storms. With more unsettled weather expected through the weekend, BC Hydro is reminding customers to have an emergency kit ready with enough supplies to last 72 hours, including food, water, batteries, flashlights, medication and a first-aid kit.
