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Tyler Olsen 🍁 Profile picture
Tyler Olsen 🍁
@ty_olsen
Old millennial. Reporter / Independent public accountability officer.
Aug 21, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Air at Siska Indian band, south of Lytton, is registering particulate numbers that are pretty incomprehensible. Image I'm not sure about the Lytton area reserves, but prior to it being placed on evacuation order a couple hours ago, Shalalth - west of Lillooet - was offering evacuations and financial support to people needing to leave for health reasons. Image
Nov 29, 2021 • 24 tweets • 8 min read
NEW STORY/THREAD:
Monday Fraser Valley flood thread. But will start with this: my story on the volcano feeding the floods, the Nooksack's three forks, why snow is good, rain is bad, and a grad student's suddenly urgent thesis fvcurrent.com/article/mount-… That story was finished late last night, after big edits by @gracekenn and @jwsthomson. To keep up with all we are doing at @currentfv, and to support us, you should subscribe at fvcurrent.com.
Nov 28, 2021 • 215 tweets • >60 min read
Sunday flood thread:
Huntingdon neighbourhood evacuated overnight; Nooksack forecast improves a bit. Will be updating this story here throughout the day.
fvcurrent.com/article/breaki… Also, I'll be putting the finishing touches on a large story for tomorrow that looks at Mt. Baker's role critical role in feeding the Nooksack its floodwaters, and how that will change over the coming years.
Subscribe to get it tomorrow morning: wwww.fvcurrent.com
Nov 28, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
This column is less, dare I say, bad than the last one. It seems to make sense throughout. And then it gets to this. Which *again* gives away the game. Which is that Corcoran's purpose, his only purpose here, is to fight against efforts to curb emissions. That's the whole point. Like, he is interested in finding a way to make his favourite argument, then he makes it. He says he's not making a 'cynical' argument. Which, fine. It's just backwards reasoned. And makes no sense because, as I previously pointed out, more rain/less snow on Baker is the thing.
Nov 28, 2021 • 33 tweets • 9 min read
Nooksack watch thread. Let's watch the Nooksack go up. And hope it doesn't go up that fast. Here was the forecast this morning: Nooksack at 142.82 as of 3:15pm
---
Compared to:
142.81 forecast as of 4pm.
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So slightly above, but has only just started to rise.
Current forecast is for it to hit:
• 144.67 at 10pm
• 147.46 at 4am
• 148.47, close to peak, at 10am tomorrow.
Nov 27, 2021 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
Abbotsford just held a press conference. Mayor Henry Braun said water down 9inches in Sumas Lake yesterday. Says weather a problem. And that it's unclear how sediment from the last storm will affect the Nooksack this time round. 🚨 "The Nooksack river has experienced significant damage and sediment build up."
"Floodwaters from the Nooksack River are anticipated to cross into the west side of Sumas Prairie in the Huntingdon area."
Be prepared to leave immediately
Nov 27, 2021 • 23 tweets • 7 min read
This is going to be a scary thread. But first, the possibility that follows is very unlikely. You should not worry about it too much. But we live in unprecedented times, so if you live in the area, it's time to now be aware of it. The (almost) worst-case scenario for the Nooksack is not the flood we saw last week, but something called an "avulsion." That's when the entire river changes course. It's a threat that's previously been mentioned in risk assessments & I've written about it abbynews.com/news/the-frase…
Nov 27, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
🚨 Ominous warning from Whatcom County, south of border: "Damage to levee systems from previous storms may result in greater impacts to the floodplain areas than would typically be experienced at these river levels."
facebook.com/sumascityhall/… Worth knowing: Americans think the Nooksack River's dikes may be less effective this weekend because of the last storm.
fvcurrent.com/article/breaki…
Nov 26, 2021 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
Inside Emergency Operations Centre in Abbotsford. Prime Minister here shortly. Normally, this is where Abbotsford council holds its meetings.
@currentfv
Nov 26, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
FLOODWATCH UPDATE:
Prime Minister is town, but this is what I'm watching. Nooksack's first wave last night was smaller than expected. But the new forecast has its second wave being higher. Now, the first wave being low is probably a good thing. It shows the variability of forecasts. BUT it is also potentially related to the larger second wave, because it likely means that precipitation fell, but just as snow. And now it's likely to melt in a couple days.
Nov 26, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
While Corcoran is living in Montreal I've:
• Covered a 40C day in Abbotsford, by FAR the hottest in its history.
• Driven through Lytton the day before it burned down and felt 49C heat .
• Watched a plume rise above Lytton while my kids in kept cool in an above-ground pool • I drove past four fires and through the remnants of Monte Creek to get to my hometown.
• I ducked as a helicopter roared over my car to extinguish a fire that had just started
• I saw pictures from my cousin of palm-sized embers landing on Vernon porches. Image
Nov 26, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Corcoran using a historical tragedy to double-down on his climate change idiocy is exactly what this discussion doesn't need right now. The same report he quotes says climate change will dramatically increase risk of flood. Maybe read a goddamn study Image Yes. We can't say anything about this particular flood. Nevermind. It's a red herring. We do know this particular flood was much more likely to have occurred than 80 years ago.
Nov 25, 2021 • 17 tweets • 6 min read
⚠Nooksack Flood Watch⚠
Predicted peak now creeping toward moderate flood territory. This would be less concerning if every forecast (they come out twice a day) hasn't been a little worse than the last one. (Gif to follow) Image This is how the forecast has changed over the last three days.
The first storm is increasingly threatening.
The second storm is increasingly threatening.
There's a third storm coming.
Nov 22, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Hello graph, my old friend. Right now, US forecasters aren't predicting another Nooksack flood, despite this week's projected rain. So that's good. Friday is so far away, it's unclear how that time lag influences the model and prediction.
Nov 22, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Climate change as a political excuse is a whole new genre these days. These floods (and those fires) become more frequent and more severe b/c of climate change. Preparing for them is even *more* urgent. But it was already pretty damn urgent.
I don't have a lot of time for politicians who have failed to prepare for yesterday's emergencies talk about how climate change means we need to prepare for tomorrow's. I mean, yeah. But start with yesterday's already!
Nov 22, 2021 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
NEW STORY: Engineers predicted the Sumas dike would fail. Then it did.
But the Sumas dike didn't die from individual neglect. It's part of a system that is likely to fail in the face of a major Fraser River flood. Today's big @currentfv story fvcurrent.com/article/fraser… I first wrote about the Sumas dike being "unacceptable" in 2016. It's only one of many around the region. All those red lines on this map are flood protections that are too low to stop a major Fraser River flood.
Nov 21, 2021 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
THREAD! Nine months ago, I was working on a story connected to the Nooksack River and Mt. Baker. I sought an interview with Mitchell Hahn, BC's Inspector of Dikes, about his involvement in the Nooksack River International Task Force. Let's go back and look at the tape. Mitchell kindly responded that I had to go through BC's communications bureaucracy. (I was expecting this.) The fellow he directed me to is a former reporter I know relatively well. What follows is not his personal fault.
Nov 20, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Watching Abbotsford update, and Mayor Henry Braun is clearly excited and optimistic. Which is extremely good, because his communication style isn't one that is always bubbly and optimistic.
"I don't know what better news I could deliver," he just said. Having spoken to him a lot, I can say Braun is usually extremely candid. That candidness frequently means that, even while delivering good news, he'll stray into the challenges and other aspects. So you usually get an accurate feel for just how he's really feeling. This was good.
Nov 19, 2021 • 19 tweets • 8 min read
Friday thread. Last night I annotated a @Peregrine_Air image of Barrowtown Pump Station because it can be very confusing. Hope it helps. Remember, you can subscribe to our daily newsletter here: fvcurrent.com Asbestos health warning from US side of the border. Folks in Canada would face same issue, because all that water flows downhill and Sumas River's asbestos was already a known factor.
Nov 18, 2021 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Quick journalism thread on how this story happens, since I've been asked about it:
Basically, on Tuesday morning (before all the Barrowtown havoc), I suggested we write it, with @gracekenn doing the history part, and I doing the flood-tech/Nooksack stuff. So we got it done relatively quickly. It didn't take long b/c we were both very familiar with the thing, in part because of Chad Reimer's amazing book, Before We Lost The Lake, which we had both already read, and which Grace already had on her desk.
caitlin-press.com/our-books/befo…
Nov 18, 2021 • 48 tweets • 13 min read
Thursday thread.
Continued good news on the not-Sumas-Lake front: On the Sumas Lake front, meanwhile, gravity continues to work. Barrowtown's potential collapse was certainly noteworthy. But it's important to realize that in our current situation, even with it operational, it only has a mitigating effect.