A powerful pineapple express storm system battered Vancouver Island and B.C.’s south coast, triggering severe flooding, power outages for nearly 500,000 customers, and property damage.
Floodwater spewed from storm drains, shot out of toilets, and backed up into basements in Port Alberni as heavy rains arrived, CTV News reported. Chris Jones woke up Wednesday to find water surrounding his home, documenting a backyard and garage sitting submerged in the dark. “I’m just lucky I don’t have a basement like my neighbours do,” he told CTV News.
“I don’t remember too many Remembrance Days that weren’t stormy and wet,” he said.
Restoration crews struggled to keep pace with inundated homes. Sam Irg, a flood technician with Valet Restoration, said his crew had worked through a chaotic all-nighter clearing tree damage on roofs and pumping water out of flooded basements. “We’ve been up all night working through it and so it’s been a lot,” said Sam Irg, a flood technician with Valet Restoration.
Environment Canada meteorologist Jennifer Hay said that the heaviest rain hit the Sunshine Coast and western Vancouver Island. Port Alberni recorded 84.8 millimetres over the same period.
“The soils are very saturated. We could see trees come down, landslides and definitely flooding, not just localized flooding, but possibly widespread flooding across a few areas,” Hay said.
Flood watches remain in place for much of Vancouver Island and the South Coast. Meanwhile, the B.C. River Forecast Centre issued high streamflow advisories, and several homes in the Pemberton area north of Whistler were evacuated.
The storms knocked out power to close to 500,000 BC Hydro customers. Spokesperson Maria Scott said that service had been restored to about 99 per cent of affected customers by Monday, though crews continued working through complicated outages in the central and northern Interior and on Vancouver Island.
Scott added that hundreds of spans of power lines and dozens of poles came down in the central Interior. Approximately 180 personnel worked on restoration efforts, aided by crews brought in from other parts of the province.
“The community has really come together though,” she said. “It’s been really nice to see a lot of people wanting to help clear trees and whatnot, so it’s nice knowing that the community got each other’s back.”
