So as you may or may not know, BC canada was hit with a pretty bad storm this past week. It's called an "atmospheric river" and it caused over a months worth of rain in under 24hrs (and then it kept raining). We've been put into a state of emergency as flash flooding occurred across the province! Mudslides and river overflows have wiped out essential highways, train lines, and fuel lines.
Every main artery out of metro Vancouver and the Fraser valley has been cut and the entire city of Chilliwack is isolated from the neighbouring cities.
Many people don't know this but the sumas plains used to be Sumas Lake! When settlers came here they decided that they wanted this space for agricultural land. So they build a canal and a pump house. They pumped all the water out of the lake, redirected it with the canal, and sent it off to the fraser river. WELL, obviously a natural lake isn't something you can just get rid of with no maintenance... The pump house was upgraded and still redirects water, until now! The rains were too uncontrollable and mother nature said "I'll take that back, thank you very much"
Sumas Lake in all her glory (1924)
Sumas Flats (2019)
Sumas Flood (2021)
People of course, unable to use a stable mind, have started hoarding groceries all across the lower mainland. We've been ensured that we wont run out of food but people are stupid š¤ Anyways! I just wanted to spread a little awareness around. Canada has, of course, heard about all of this but I'm sure lots of places across the world have no idea about what's happening over here! People have lost their homes, pets, livestock, livelihoods, and unfortunately their lives... It's one of the worst disasters that BC has ever seen and I wish as humans we would act faster with making big environmental changes. Yes climate change may play a part in extreme weather like this but this has more to do with more forest and land management. If forests were properly managed (and not clear cut) we'd have healthy root systems from ancient trees, plants, dead plant matter, etc. This would cause our forests to be more resistant to our devastating yearly forest fires, and freak natural disasters such as this one...
With all of this, I will leave you with something that I think is rather funny... An RV rental lot on fire in the middle of a flood!! Seems like someone has fire insurance but not flood insurance.... ššš
