Highway Thru Hell floods 2021

[SideHillSoup]

The last couple of days southern British Columbia has seen unbelievable amounts of rain fall and warm temperatures.
Hope BC had just under 10 inches of rain in 36 hrs.
The main Hwy that the Highway Thru Hell is filmed also got a dump of rain and with the higher than normal temperatures at this time of year, a lot of the snow pac up high melted and added to the moisture content coming off the mountains.
The south bound lane on Hwy 5 “The Coquihalla” lost an entire 2 lanes ( 4 lane Hwy) plus the bridge under it.
The other north bound lane is still there but the Hwy is entirely closed at this time. There will need to be a lot of inspections and work done before they even consider opening the north lane, if they ever do.
The south bound lane & bridge is gone.
Bridge gone
In saying all this, with Hwy 5 closed for an undetermined amount of time, the other two Hwys that go between the interior of BC ( or coming from Alberta) will now be Hwy 3 and Hwy 1 through the Fraser Canyon , which are both 2 lane Hwys and both are / were closed today because of mud slides..
So… that means all Hwy traffic that you see on the Highway Throu Hell will now be funnled through two 2 lane Hwys.
Going to be interesting for everyone including people that are RVing ( camping) in the near future.
Stay safe everyone.

[noteven]

StirCrazy wrote:

Fisherman wrote:
Like other questionable areas around the world, why would anyone in their right mind live at the bottom of a drained lake. Not the first time this has happened either.

its quite interesting, I was wondering the same thing and looked into the history. it was basicly a very very large, very shallow lake, more of a swamp, mosquitos and all that stuff. it was easy to build a "dam/spillway" from the sumas river to the fraser to divert the water and install a dyke and pump station to maintain it once they put the flow back to normal. the reason for doing it asind from getting rid of the "swamp" was that it would give them much needed rich farmland they despratly needed.

This was done in the 1920’s as a public works project. The Barrowtown pump station beside highway 1 lifts the water into the Vedder River whicj joins the Fraser.

The Fraser River flooded in a major way in 1948. This resulted in a major mitigation project.

There is lots of “tilted topography” north and east of the lower Fraser valley. It drains in a hurry. I’ve seen washing machine size rocks being rumbled down a creek that you can wade ankle deep in dry weather. It’s a noise you don’t forget when it wakes you up in your camper :E

[StirCrazy]

Fisherman wrote:
Like other questionable areas around the world, why would anyone in their right mind live at the bottom of a drained lake. Not the first time this has happened either.

its quite interesting, I was wondering the same thing and looked into the history. it was basicly a very very large, very shallow lake, more of a swamp, mosquitos and all that stuff. it was easy to build a "dam/spillway" from the sumas river to the fraser to divert the water and install a dyke and pump station to maintain it once they put the flow back to normal. the reason for doing it asind from getting rid of the "swamp" was that it would give them much needed rich farmland they despratly needed.

[ssthrd]

Click here to get an idea of the effects of the storm. the first 2 pages show some of the damage. Been in SW BC for 40 years and never seen anything like this.

With winter coming (or is here in the mountains), I can't imagine getting roads, bridges, railway lines open any time soon. I can see bringing in contractors from anywhere they are available to get things rolling with the time left before it will become a herculean effort. I guess we are there already.

[blofgren]

Fisherman wrote:
Like other questionable areas around the world, why would anyone in their right mind live at the bottom of a drained lake. Not the first time this has happened either.

It's mostly agricultural land, but definitely a disaster regardless. It is really hard to believe how much damage occurred over such a large area with one storm.

It's been a pretty tough week here in BC and more heavy rain coming this week....

[Fisherman]

Like other questionable areas around the world, why would anyone in their right mind live at the bottom of a drained lake. Not the first time this has happened either.

[noteven]

Sumas Prairie south east of Abbotsford is a polder- a reclaimed lake bottom. When we lived in the lower mainland in the early 90’s we got 9” of rain in a day and a half courtesy of a “Pineapple Express”. There was a guy ferrying food with a motorboat following No. 3 Road.

This was all prior to The Climate Crisis.

[BFL13]

On the Island, I was all set to go from Victoria up to Rathtrevor park in Parksville on Monday, but had to wait till Tuesday to get up the Malahat past the washout on the Northbound lane. Then coming back on Saturday there was a detour past a new sinkhole in the main road just north of Nanaimo, but they had got the Malahat road fixed a little better.

Thing is, they spent a Kabillion dollars upgrading the Island Highway the last few years, and here it is with a washout, flooding across the road, and a sinkhole. WTF??? Did the lowest bidder use sand instead of rocks here and there for road base?

Not a peep in the "media" about why. Reminds me of the stories of the poor Russian soldiers in WW1 who found they had sand instead of gunpowder in their cartridges, because of contractors seeing off the government.

Hope the hippies in Burnaby noticed how they ran out of gas at the gas stations when the Trans Mountain had to close. Somehow doubt it! 😞

[SideHillSoup]

The BC Ministry of Transportation has a site that is showing pictures of the floods and mudslides. They are updating some pictures in the effected areas daily. It’s going to be a long time fixing this disaster.
Mud slides and floods, in south western BC

[SideHillSoup]

We drove by there about 2 weeks ago and we commented on all the New RV’s all lined up in row after row after row.
CTV morning news showed the fire from a choppers view. Lots burned up and a lot of rows to go, very sad what happening down there.
Soup.

[StirCrazy]

bcbouy wrote:
fraserway rv storage yard in Abbotsford is burning out of control right now.there's no way for fire crews to get to it due to the flooded hwy.hundreds of new rvs are going to be lost.35 rows are already gone.we ordered our Cougar from them but i don't think it's in the mess.

theres 40 firefighters on scean now. kinda suck as its one of there camper brands I was thinking of buying as a upgrade for the old truck camper. thoes prices will proabably be going up now.

Steve

[bcbouy]

fraserway rv storage yard in Abbotsford is burning out of control right now.there's no way for fire crews to get to it due to the flooded hwy.hundreds of new rvs are going to be lost.35 rows are already gone.we ordered our Cougar from them but i don't think it's in the mess.

[SideHillSoup]

StirCrazy wrote:

SideHillSoup wrote:
As for 3: pm Tuesday, They are finding multiple bodies at the Hwy 99 mud slide, sad.

Soup.

tonights news only said one confirmed death..

on a good note my comute to work has been nice with no rigs on the road. last night was the worst I have seen the Coq in over 12 years ( took me 1hr 45 min to get to work, normaly a 55min drive) and surprisingly there was no one in the ditch. suports my theory that the rigs cause 99.9% of the issues out here. and no trains, nice an quiet at home...

Steve

Yup, only one found. The news report I got that info from yesterday, has updated their info on the Hwy 99 death count.
More info as time passes.

[StirCrazy]

SideHillSoup wrote:
As for 3: pm Tuesday, They are finding multiple bodies at the Hwy 99 mud slide, sad.

Soup.

tonights news only said one confirmed death..

on a good note my comute to work has been nice with no rigs on the road. last night was the worst I have seen the Coq in over 12 years ( took me 1hr 45 min to get to work, normaly a 55min drive) and surprisingly there was no one in the ditch. suports my theory that the rigs cause 99.9% of the issues out here. and no trains, nice an quiet at home...

Steve

[SideHillSoup]

As for 3: pm Tuesday, They are finding multiple bodies at the Hwy 99 mud slide, sad.

Soup.