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16 Nov, 52 tweets, 16 min read
New day, new thread and, wellllllp
Not one news story (aside from ours, link below) right now, mentions Sumas Lake. Which is a problem given the crucial role it is playing in the flooding. We'll be spending our day on on the lake that was (and may be again).
fvcurrent.com/article/fraser…
google.com/search?q=%22su…
The problem, again, is that all this Nooksack River water wants to flow downhill. And downhill isn't necessarily toward the Fraser but toward the old lake bed of Sumas Lake. Which used to look like this:
And be located here, via Seelkee on Wikipeedia
For millennia it was at the centre of Fraser Valley life, before engineers came along and tried to engineer it away: abbynews.com/news/fraser-va…
Some have asked how does the lake get drained if it fills in? There are a series of canals that deliver water to a pump station that then keeps the lake from filling up. I'm not sure about the pumping system from the bottom of the lake bed though.
bradnerbarker.com/news/december-…
Just last year the City of Abbotsford published a report on flooding from the Nooksack. This exact thing. There were some maps included about potential scenarios. Just going to post them here. I'm not sure anyone knows what scenario we're looking at.
This is a duplicate of the 1990 flood. Judging by aerial footage, I think we are beyond this.
A 100-year flood with embankment breaches but no dike breaches
Slightly different model:
Another model:
The 200-year flood with dike breaches (a.k.a by me: the Holy Shit flood):
You can see the whole study here: abbotsford.ca/sites/default/…
On the good-news front, the Nooksack is starting to recede after hitting its limit a couple days ago.
On the not-great-news front, the Fraser River is at a bonkers level for November. At peak freshet levels. This is worth watching not b/c the Fraser will flood (it won't), but b/c it will affect how quickly Sumas Prairie can be drained.
Because, remember, the water in Sumas Prairie will want to flow downhill. When the Fraser is at typical November levels, the water more or less wants to go there. When it's at June levels, it wants to go to the bed of Sumas Lake.
Yarrow (a community in Chilliwack on the south side of the Vedder River/Canal and adjacent to Sumas Prairie) to be evacuated:
Map of Yarrow evacuation zone
The sign reads:
VERY SLOW TRAFFIC
REDUCE SPEED AHEAD
Photos just released from City of Abbotsford:
More:
More:
End:
Again, there is a marked contrast in the information our government provides to citizens compared to the information the state government next door provides to its citizens.
MAP: This is an important question, so I made a quick map to explain. If you can't read, click the link and you should be able to zoom.
datawrapper.dwcdn.net/KijDq/1/
That map, with larger text: datawrapper.dwcdn.net/KijDq/2/
Pretty damn close! @ProfMKavanagh
Too many threads right now. The latest, on the bad scenario that looks like it's coming true.
🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨 Dire news:
🚨🚨🚨 This sounds like a dike breach
City holding an emergency presser at 9pm so we will know more then.
This is the problem. It's potentially much worse than the very dire tweets I just tweeted, which I'll be deleting.
This is the Barrowtown Pump Station. I did a story about it a few years ago. It's got four huge pumps. It's been pumping water out. It sounds like it's now letting water in from above.
The station is right here: Much of that area to the south is actually at sea level. The pump station is needed to keep Sumas Lake from re-forming. The Fraser is, like, many feet above sea level there. If the Fraser starts to pour south, it's going to get very deep, very quick.
In this seemingly worst-case scenario, all that red is water that is three metres deep or more. This could potentially be worse than that, given how high the Fraser is at the present.
If you're joining us now, you can go back two days here and follow around. Don't really have time to do much tweeting now.
City release. Barrowtown to fail "within 7 hours" which at least hasn't happened already.
Also, appreciate all the concern, but I'm fine and in a very safe location.
Will be updating this story
fvcurrent.com/article/breaki…
Couple things: This area isn't all of Abbotsford, which is mostly up on a hill. The area to be affected is almost exclusively farms. It's bad, but be aware this isn't where 90% of those in Abbotsford, which has a population of 150,000, live
But this is extremely urgent, in part, because all these places are farms, and the area was slowly filling up with water. The farmers were under evacuation order, but as the mayor said, he could understand why many were staying behind trying to save cattle.
There are probably around 3,000 residents who live in Sumas Prairie. Most would live on farms. Not all are farmers. Some may rent. (We have friends who do that in the area.) Also likely to be many farmworkers.
Press conference done. Was journalisming on the go. Find our @currentfv story here.
fvcurrent.com/article/breaki…
ALSO, you may have seen stuff about Sumas Lake. We have a big comprehensive article on how that & the Nooksack relate to one another out first thing tomorrow. (It will have to be rejigged somewhat, but all 👆 makes it more, not less, relevant)
Subscribe: fvcurrent.com
going back to the conference. It was actually *less* dire than the press release. Which is a tiiiiiny bit of good news. They are clearly trying to really make sure everybody gets out, which is probably the right tack to take.
3,000-4,000 people or so live in the evacuated areas in Abbotsford
Meanwhile, an old article on Barrowtown. I regret, in hindsight, that I didn't include more on the effects on First Nations.

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More from @ty_olsen

Tyler Olsen Profile picture
16 Nov
🚨 BREAKING: This worst-case scenario is starting to become reality. Water is pouring over a large dike separating the bulk of lands currently flooded from the former bed of Sumas Lake. Highway will likely be closed for days.
Abbotsford Mayor Henry Braun told me that he had never seen so much water, that it is continuing to flow from the Nooksack, and that there remains a steady stream coming over the border into Abbotsford. It's all very, very bad.
Story coming shortly at fvcurrent.com
And please subscribe to the @currentfv newsletter for an in-depth story tomorrow explaining how the Nooksack and the legacy of the draining of Sumas Lake are combining to create this disaster.
Read 4 tweets
Tyler Olsen Profile picture
15 Nov
1. Side thread: With the Nooksack in "major flood" stage and its water heading north of the border (hence the evac alerts), worth considering what that can mean. Luckily we have a report from last year spelling out just what a Nooksack flood can look like.
2. Study looked at a variety of scenarios. Unclear right now which one we are looking at. We haven't yet seen Highway 1 closed, as happened in 1990, but that seems verrrrrrry possible.
3. One potential consequence: Flooding of many farm parcels with sewage lagoons.
Read 8 tweets
Tyler Olsen Profile picture
15 Nov
New day, new thread. And the Nooksack will soon be in "major flood" territory, if it is not already, which has big implications for the Fraser Valley.
This morning, we'll be updating this story, with the highway latest, power outages, evacuations, etc.: fvcurrent.com
Schools closed: Chilliwack, Mission.
Open: Abbotsford, Langley
Pro-D days in Fraser-Cascade
Read 15 tweets
Tyler Olsen Profile picture
15 Nov
Alright. Signing off with this. I've done quite a bit of
informing-the-public work today. Also did some parenting & played a hockey game. Maybe did a half day of work? Worth considering when looking at how our public institutions have informed the public.
Not quite off. One other thing: Clearly climate change increases the likelihood of these things. But if I hear one more politician cite these disasters as reasons we need to address climate change while at the same time not planning for disasters *now,* so help me...
And planning doesn't mean "funding some plan for some initiative for some action." Funding means ensuring your office knows how to address an emergency if it were to occur tomorrow. Like actually talking about how to get the word out about an impending flood.
Read 4 tweets
Tyler Olsen Profile picture
14 Nov
This U.S. river should be what everyone in the Lower Mainland is watching. When the Nooksack floods, it frequently runs north into Canada and Abbotsford. It has the potential to shut down Highway 1 between Chilliwack & Abbotsford and refill Sumas Lake.
abbynews.com/news/the-frase…
This is a long-standing issue (the quote below is from 2016), but while there was a whole task force on the Nooksack to look at cross-border flooding, it didn't meet once between 2012 and 2019. Anyways, worth keeping an eye on that gauge.
abbynews.com/news/nooksack-… Image
The City of Abbotsford, at least, has been doing work on this. Last year it produced this report. Part of the goal was to show senior levels of government of the need to prevent a future flood.
abbotsford.ca/sites/default/…
Read 40 tweets
Tyler Olsen Profile picture
6 Aug
The good thing is that cases are only going up in the Central Okanagan so if we control the spread there and stay away, the mission will once again be accomplished.
Dammit. That was the Fraser Health graph. Let's try that again.
Whoops. That was the Vancouver Island graph. Here:
Read 5 tweets

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