Heavy rain and a lack of snowpack on the North Shore mountains led to a torrent of water rushing down the mountainside Monday night, overflowing several creeks and flooding more than a dozen homes in the Lynn Valley neighbourhood, according to a weather expert.
Chris Scott, a meteorologist with the Weather Network, said the snowpack usually acts like a sponge to soak up the rain and delay the water rushing down the mountain.
“These are smaller creeks where the water sheaths off the North Shore Mountains and then runs through. They have very little capacity and when you have all that water coming down the hillside, well they can burst their banks pretty easily and unfortunately flood people’s basements,” said Scott.
Up to 86 millimetres of rain battered the North Shore on Monday as a strong frontal system moved through B.C.’s south coast. The storm followed a month of heavier than normal rainfall in Metro Vancouver.
Water rushed into Argyle Secondary School late in the evening Monday, forcing officials to close the high school on Tuesday. The District of North Vancouver said 17 homes were evacuated in Lynn Valley.
Gallant Creek in Deep Cove also overflowed, causing localized flooding. By Tuesday morning, the district said some residents were returning to their homes, except in 3500 and 3600 blocks of Fromme Road.
An emergency operations centre was set up and about 40 crew members responded to redirect the flow and to clear the roads of debris. The fire department reported flooding shortly before 11:30 p.m. in the Upper Lynn Valley area, warning residents to stay away from all creeks.
District of North Vancouver asst. fire chief Michael Cairns says heavy rainfall caused culverts in roughly five different areas across the North Shore to overflow. He says crews spent the night clearing creeks with heavy machinery and diverting water flow from houses.
He says the flooding has mostly subsided, and municipal crews will spend the day clearing debris. “There’s pretty substantial damage to a lot of houses,” he said
on Tuesday. “There was too much water flow. We did try to divert from houses as much as possible.’’
Authorities in West Vancouver were also busy Monday night with multiple calls about flooded homes. West Vancouver Fire tweeted that there was some flooding on streets in Dundarave area.
“It’s been wet. The ground was already saturated,” said Scott, adding that 184 millimetres of rain fell at Vancouver International Airport in October, much higher than the normal rainfall of 121 millimetres. “The other problem is that it was raining on the top of the North Shore Mountains ... that’s a problem because that rain is going to run down the mountain.”
A rainfall warning was issued for Metro Vancouver and portions of the Fraser Valley and Howe Sound earlier Monday but it has since been lifted. On Tuesday morning, Environment Canada said Coquitlam and Burnaby were each hit with more than 70 millimetres of rain overnight, while Pitt Meadows, Squamish and Maple Ridge saw more than 50 millimetres. More than 30 millimetres fell at the Vancouver airport.
The rain is expected to taper off to showers by Tuesday morning but then more heavy rain is expected is expected on Wednesday and Thursday.
Andre Besson, a meteorologist for Environment Canada, said he doesn’t anticipate the rainfall will be as heavy as Monday night, but he expects high winds for Metro Vancouver starting mid-week and lasting through Thursday. Then, he predicts Metro Vancouver will get another break in the heavy rainfall on Friday.
Meanwhile, two cyclists and two pedestrians were sent to hospital with various injuries after being hit during a wet, dark rush hour Monday evening, according to B.C. Ambulance Services spokesman Ben Mittelsteadt.
A pedestrian hit at Burnaby’s Hastings Street and Inlet Drive around 5:15 p.m. was sent to hospital in critical condition, Mittelsteadt said. Another pedestrian hit in Coquitlam at Landsowne and Eagleridge drives around 5:45 p.m. was also sent to hospital in critical condition, he added.
In Burnaby, a cyclist was sent to Vancouver General Hospital in serious condition after being hit at Patterson Avenue and Castlewood Crescent around 5:30 p.m., Mittelsteadt said.
About 20 minutes earlier in Abbotsford, another cyclist, in his 50s, was hit by a delivery truck and sent to hospital conscious but with injuries, according to Abbotsford police spokesman Const. Ian Macdonald.
Macdonald said authorities often deal with more crashes the first night of commuting after people set their clocks back an hour each fall.
