Post by RickW on Nov 16, 2021 19:47:28 GMT -5
What a year for weather here. In the summer, we got hit with the heat dome in the early summer, which not only roasted a lot of crops on the ground, killed 600 people, but dried out the forests even further, bringing on the fire season even earlier than usual. Two towns completely burned up, and the interior covered in smoke for pretty well the entire summer. So much for tourist season again.
A couple of weeks ago Vancouver actually got hit by a tornado. Massive water spout from the ocean when through the University of British Columbia causing a fair bit of damage.
This last weekend we had what’s called an “Atmospheric River”, that hit both us and Washington State. Close to a foot of rain over the weekend. We get a lot of rain, and the water has places to go. But not like this. Every major highway from Vancouver to the interior has been cut off by landslides or bridges being taken out by flooding rivers. The Coquihalla highway, the biggest artery that carries the truck traffic, is broken in 5 places. Over 200 cars got trapped for most of a day about 50 miles east of our place, when slides came down in front of them, then behind them. Railways are also broken all over. The fields around here are flooded. The levees, (speaking American there,) held around Vancouver, but all the protests agains building on the various flood plains now look like maybe they were right. The community of Merritt was evacuated, 7,000 people, when the water flooded their sewage treatment plant. A good part of the town of Princeton is under water now.
And we’ve been told before that with climate change, both heat domes an atmospheric rivers will become more common. I’m so glad we moved off the flood plain we lived on 14 years ago. Not to say that the hillside we’re on now couldn’t dissolve with more of that. Thankfully the rain stopped and it was sunny today. If that thing had gone on for another day or two, I’m not sure the levees would have held, and the smaller towns wouldn’t have made it.
They are building a new highway as we speak to connect Vancouver to Hope, the first major stop, and they are hoping to get one of the highways open in a few days. The rest of them are not going to be functional for a very long time.
Welcome to the new world.
A couple of weeks ago Vancouver actually got hit by a tornado. Massive water spout from the ocean when through the University of British Columbia causing a fair bit of damage.
This last weekend we had what’s called an “Atmospheric River”, that hit both us and Washington State. Close to a foot of rain over the weekend. We get a lot of rain, and the water has places to go. But not like this. Every major highway from Vancouver to the interior has been cut off by landslides or bridges being taken out by flooding rivers. The Coquihalla highway, the biggest artery that carries the truck traffic, is broken in 5 places. Over 200 cars got trapped for most of a day about 50 miles east of our place, when slides came down in front of them, then behind them. Railways are also broken all over. The fields around here are flooded. The levees, (speaking American there,) held around Vancouver, but all the protests agains building on the various flood plains now look like maybe they were right. The community of Merritt was evacuated, 7,000 people, when the water flooded their sewage treatment plant. A good part of the town of Princeton is under water now.
And we’ve been told before that with climate change, both heat domes an atmospheric rivers will become more common. I’m so glad we moved off the flood plain we lived on 14 years ago. Not to say that the hillside we’re on now couldn’t dissolve with more of that. Thankfully the rain stopped and it was sunny today. If that thing had gone on for another day or two, I’m not sure the levees would have held, and the smaller towns wouldn’t have made it.
They are building a new highway as we speak to connect Vancouver to Hope, the first major stop, and they are hoping to get one of the highways open in a few days. The rest of them are not going to be functional for a very long time.
Welcome to the new world.